


Voltron Scripts

by IamtheLastDragonLord



Series: Scripts [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-26 13:04:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13858341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamtheLastDragonLord/pseuds/IamtheLastDragonLord
Summary: Pretty  much my way of being super bored and trying to justify being an ass to everyone who waited so long for my YJ scripts- it's not true, but it's the best way I can think to apologize.Refer to those if you can't figure out from the title what these are supposed to be





	1. Rise of Voltron: Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will be updated on the first of every month, the only reason this started not on the first is that I wanted to wait until after I had watched S5.

**Kerberos: Fourth Moon of Pluto**

**_(I’ll be using them/they pronouns for Pidge, y’all can fight me on it, but I’m doing it, however, anytime that someone uses pronouns for Pidge that is straight from the show it will remain the same, I know that’s confusing and really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I’m sticking by it. Sorry for any inconveniences. Also, I’m only dividing this up because to do this in one thing would make this a MASSIVE document, also means I can stay ahead like I did for Young Justice.)_ **

On the ice surface of Kerberos, a small hole has a long cable running down the center. The hoist begins to lift a yellow metal tube out of the hole., holding a column of ice. A gloved hand reaches into the tube, the black fingers of the glove slipping into the narrow space easily. “Easy, son. This ice is delicate.” a blonde man with glasses tells the younger blonde who is slowly pulling the ice out.

“Amazing.” he murmurs, then glances up. “Isn't this exciting, Shiro?”

A raven-haired man, who is holding the gold tube steady. Chuckles. “You guys get a little more excited about ice samples than I do.”

“This is history in the making. Not only have we traveled farther than any human ever has, but this ice could hold microscopic clues about the existence of life outside Earth.” the older man says wistfully.

“Think of it, Dad. We could use those clues to become the first people to meet aliens.” the younger blonde says excitedly.

“My life's work would be complete.” his father murmurs as something causes the ground to shake, just as his son finishes pulling the ice out completely. “What is that? Seismic activity?” he questions in disbelief. 

“We should get back to the ship.” Shiro says, stepping behind the young blonde  **_(whom I really wish to name now!)_ ** and putting a hand behind him as his balance falters.

All three look up as a large shadow passes over them and everything within eyeshot. “What? What is that?” the eldest gasps, but it’s right before him and he can’t argue with what he’s seeing. “It can't be.”

Shiro’s deep ink-grey eyes widen as something on the ship begins to light up. “Run!” when neither of his crewmates move he grabs both of them by the arms. “Come on, run!”

The light on the front of the ship turns into an almost laser-like force that shines purple onto Kerberos’ surface. Despite their best effort the crew can’t outrun it and get sucked into the tractor beam as they scream.

* * *

 

“Emperor Zarkon, we were scouting System X-9-Y as ordered when we found these primitive scientists.” a voice says, slowly becoming clearer as Shiro regains consciousness, the longer strands of his black hair falling to shadow his right eye. Something grabs the back of his spacesuit and forces Shiro to look up at the blue-headed soldier speaking to the screen image of a dark shadow with glowing purple eyes. “I don't think they know anything useful.”

“Take them back to the main fleet for interrogation.” the shadow commands. Shiro nervously looks over at the other two members, who still have their helmets on. “The druids will find out what they know.”

Shiro chooses the small lapse as his opportunity. “Please, we come from a peaceful planet!” the blue-headed soldier looks back at him instantly. “We mean you no harm! We're unarmed!” one of the soldiers behind him uses his gun to strike him in the back of the neck, causing the raven to fall unconscious with a groan.

* * *

 

Shiro’s eyes open sluggishly, he can see one of the soldiers leading his shorter crew member to wherever he’s being dragged.

“Look, they brought in another one.” a male voice muses from behind one of the closed doors that line the hall.

“Who is it?” someone else questions.

“Over there.” the same voice returns. “It's another one.”

“Huh?” Shiro manages sluggishly as he looks out what are now windows on his left side, his eyes widen as he sees the cell-style continue for floors.

* * *

 

**One Year Later**

“Galaxy Garrison flight log 5-11-14. Begin descent to Kerberos for rescue mission.” a young male, with tanned skin, Valkyrie _**(blue/green)**_ colored eyes, messy brown, and lithe figure hair guides the ship into a steep descent to the moon.

Behind him another boy groans, he’s darker in complexion to the pilot, his hair also a few shades darker and tied away from his ebony colored eyes with an orange bandana. “Lance, can you keep this thing straight?”

“Relax, Hunk,” Lance tells him with a roll of his eyes. “I'm just getting a feel for the stick.” he smirks. “It's not like I did this!” veering the ship suddenly left. “Or this!” veering the ship suddenly to the right.

Hunk groans with each shift of direction, even as Lance evens the ship out. “Okay, unless you want to wipe beef stroganoff out of all the little nooks and crannies in this thing, you'd better knock it off, man!” he shouts.

“We've picked up a distress beacon!” a short, pale, gravity-defying styled blonde, with glasses, rimmed golden eyes, calls out.

“All right, look alive, team!” Lance says smoothly as he reaches a few things overhead. “Pidge, track coordinates.”

“Copy.” Pidge replies.

“Knock it off, Lance! Please!” Hunk cries as the shaking gets worse and something starts beeping.

“This one's on you, buddy.” Lance says, a small smug look tugging at his lips. “We've got a hydraulic stabilizer out.”

Hunk reaches over to look at the screen as the jostling gets worse. He swallows heavily. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, no. Fix now, puke later.” Lance says strongly.

“I lost contact. The shaking is interfering with our sensors.” Pidge informs.

“Come on, Hunk!” Lance yells, barely glancing back for a second.

“It's not responding.” Hunk moans as he turns his chair and removes his seatbelts. 

“Huh, never mind, fellas.” Lance says as a small indicator pops up on the inside of the windshield. “Thar she blows. Preparing for approach on visual.” 

“I don't think that's advisable with our current mechanical” Pidge grimaces before continuing. “and gastrointestinal issues.”

“Agreed.” Hunk pipes up.

“Stop worrying. This baby can take it, can't you, champ?” Lance asks the ship, lightly patting the control console.The ship rumbles stronger than any other time before. “See? She was nodding. She was nodding.” he says, slightly nervous, before his smirk returns. “Pidge, hail down to them and let them know their ride is here.”

Pidge stands on their chair and grabs the comm set. “Attention, lunar vessel-” Pidge screams as they is knocked off balance by a bad bout of shaking that brings them crashing to the floor.

“What are you doing? Buckle your belt. And, Hunk, stop that shaking!” Lance says, his own nerves starting to show.

“I'm try- Oh, no.” Hunk moans for a few seconds then vomits.

“Attention, lunar vessel, this is Galaxy Garrison Rescue Craft One Victor Six Three Tango. Coming in for landing and extraction,” lowly under their breath as they glare at Lance they adds a snide comment. “against crew recommendations.”

“No time for your mutinous comments now. They're going under and we're going in.” Lance focuses as he begins to guide the ship downwards.

“Look out for that overhang!” Pidge calls, a terrified look on their face.

“No worries. My first year in flight school, know what they called me? They called me "The Tailor" because of how I thread the needle.” Lance snarks, then turning back to the task at hand. “Come around, come around! Come on, come on!”

The computer beeps loudly.

“We lost a wing!” Hunk informs horrified.

“Oh, man.” Lance moans as the beeping continues until they loudly crash on the surface of Kerberos.

**Simulation failed.** The computerized voice calls out as the words appear in red on the black screen.

“Nice work, Tailor.” Pidge grumbles as a military officer opens the door.

“Roll out, donkeys!”

The same man, an elder with a squint and greying hair, stands before Pidge, Hunk, and Lance. “Let's see if we can't use this complete failure as a lesson for the rest of you students. Can anyone point out the mistakes these three so-called cadets made in the simulator?”

“The engineer puked in the main gearbox.” a long-haired brunet male calls out.

“Yes. As everyone knows, vomit is  **not** an approved lubricant for engine systems.” the military man agrees, his snap at Hunk causes the teen to jump in shock. “What else?”

“The comm spec removed his safety harness.” a dark-haired girl with an accent points out.

“The pilot crashed!” an excited bespectacled girl points out.

“Correct. And worst of all, the whole jump, they're arguing with each other. Heck, if you're going to be this bad individually, you'd better at least be able to work as a team! Galaxy Garrison exists to turn young cadets like you into the next generation of elite astrial explorers, but these kinds of mental mistakes are exactly what cost the lives of the men on the Kerberos Mission.”

Pidge’s eyebrows shoot up and their whole posture shifts from calm to royally po’d at the last comment. “That's not true, sir!”

“What did you say?” he demands.

Lance reaches over quickly, covering Pidge’s mouth so he can maybe get them out of this alive and still students. “Sorry, sir. I think he hit his head when he fell out of his chair. But point taken.” he gives a big smile as if to appease the man.

“I hope I don't need to remind you that the only reason you're here is that the best pilot in your class had a discipline issue and flunked out. Don't follow in his footsteps.” he says to Lance’s face as he goes from nervous to slowly falling into an emotionless acceptance at his words. “Next!”

The next set of three go into the simulator, passing Pidge, Hunk, and Lance as they do so.

* * *

 

“Lights out in five! Everyone back to their dorms, now.” the same man calls out walking through the still decently occupied hallway.

“We shouldn't be doing this.” Hunk- who is now wearing a yellow long sleeve, khakis, and a green vest- says to Lance- who is now wearing blue jeans, a grey, and blue top, under a simple zip-up and an army green jacket- both of whom stay around the corner as they watch the officer go the other way.

“You heard Commander Iverson. We need to bond as a team. We're going to grab Pidge, hit the town, loosen up, meet some nice girls-” Lance says, completely uncaring as the lights turn off.

“I'm just saying this here, right now, on the record. This is a bad idea.” Hunk says, cementing his view as he literally points to right where he’s standing.

Lance takes off down the hall, slowing as they come into view of the staff cafeteria. “You know, for someone in a space exploration program, you don't have much of a sense of adventure.” he stops and glances in.

“All of your little adventures end up with me in the principal's office.” Hunk says, watching as Lance drops to a crawl and not-so-stealthy glances in, then continues forward. “Oh, man.”

A guard walks past a blue recycling can and bulging yellow one. “L-5 north all clear.”

The lids open as both teens peek out. Lance jumping out with both ease and grace. While Hunk struggles to get his hands out and ends up falling to the floor. Though he jumps right back to standing with a confident “I'm fine.”

Lance sees a door in front of them opening and grabs Hunk’s wrist, pulling him to the side with a yelp. Stepping out is Pidge, wearing grey shorts, orange hightops, and a baggy green and white sweatshirt. Yet, they also have a bag on their back. “Where is he going?” Lance murmurs watching as the small blonde runs down the halls.

* * *

 

On the roof of the Galaxy Garrison, backed by solar panels, and only the desert before them, Pidge sits before an impressive computer set-up. There’s faint electronic beeping and voices murmuring in their headphones. 

“You come up here to rock out?” Lance asks, not gaining Pidge’s attention until he actually spoke.

Pidge jumps back, knocking their own headphones off. Calming as they see Lance kneeling before them and Hunk crawling forward low to the roof. “Oh, Lance, Hunk.” they sigh. “No, um, just looking at the stars.” they try, really unconvincingly.

“Where'd you get this stuff? It doesn't look like Garrison tech.” Lance asks, looking it over.

“I built it.” Pidge says smugly.

Hunk comes up beside Pidge. “You built all of this?” he asks, reaching out to poke it. “Hey!” he yelps when Pidge slaps his hand away.

“Stop it!” Hunk slithers away. “With this thing, I can scan all the way to the edge of the solar system.” Pidge informs.

“That right?” Lance asks knowingly. “All the way to Kerberos?” Pidge’s confident smile drops and they obtain a look that almost looks like a kicked puppy until they sigh and don’t even bother to try and deny it. “You go ballistic every time the instructors bring it up. What's your deal?”

Hoping Pidge would be distracted by Lance Hunk reaches out and plays with the small satellite dish.

“Second warning, Hunk!” they snap, ignoring Hunk’s groan.

“Look, Pidge, if we're going to bond as a team, we can't have any secrets.” Lance says seriously.

“Fine.” Pidge grumbles. “The world as you know it is about to change. The Kerberos Mission wasn't lost because of some malfunction or crew mistake.” they see something out of the corner of their eye. “Stop touching my equipment!” they shout at Hunk loud enough to hopefully fully dissuade him, judging Lance’s look of  _ dude, even I’m not that dumb _ and Hunk falling to his side like a wounded animal it seems to work. “So, I've been scanning the system and picking up alien radio chatter.”

“Whoa. What? Aliens?” Hunk questions, stunned.

“Okay. So, you're insane. Got it.” Lance brushes off simply.

“I'm serious.” Pidge grumbles as they reach over to grab something next totheir setup. “They keep repeating one word, ‘Voltron’.” they point to where they’ve written the word out in multiple colors and drawn some small images around it. “And tonight, it's going crazier than I have  **ever** heard it.”

“How crazy?” Lance asks, willing taking the bait.

_ “Attention, students. This is not a drill. We are on lockdown! Security situation Zulu Niner. Repeat: all students are to remain in barracks until further notice.”  _ Iverson calls out over the PA. Stunning the three students on the roof.

“What's going on?” Hunk mumbles, standing up and looking around. Then looking up. “Is that a meteor? A very, very big meteor?”

Pidge pulls out a pair of binoculars. “It's a ship.” they yelp as Lance reaches out, grabs the binoculars and pulls them along as well.

“Holy crow! I can't believe what I'm seeing! That's not one of ours.” Lance shouts, stunned that Pidge isn’t as crazy as he thought.

“No. It's one of theirs.” Pidge says excitedly.

“So, wait. There really are aliens out there?” Hunk questions, still too confused and stunned to get his brain working at the speed it should be.

All three of them watch as the ship crashes behind a small rock grouping not too far from the Garrison.

Three All Terrain Vehicles turn their headlights on and take off after the crash site. 

“We've got to see that ship!” Pidge says excitedly to Lance, their gear miraculously put away.

Lance takes less than few seconds to follow Pidge. “Hunk, come on!” he calls over his shoulder as both of them run towards the staircase.  **_(or possibly an elevator, I don’t know.)_ **

“Oh, this is the worst team-building exercise ever.” Hunk groans, but takes after them anyway.

Pidge is set up on Lance’s left, who they gave their binoculars to, while they type away at their computer setup. While Hunk crouches on Lance’s right.

Lance gets a full view of the ship that crashes. “Whoa! What the heck is that thing?” he shifts his attention to the entrance of the dome. Seeing someone walk out. He zooms in, sees that it’s a woman. “And who the heck is she?”

“Lance!” Pidge reprimands, landing a solid hit on the top of his head.

“Ow!” he whines. “Right, alien ship. Man, we'll never get past all of those guards to get a look.” he gripes, looking over the binoculars.

“Aw, man.” Hunk whine, semi-sympathetically. “Yeah, yeah, I guess there's nothing to do but head back to the barracks, right?” Hunk stands up to leave without a response.

Pidge’s computer bings. “Wait. They set up a camera in there and I grabbed its feed. Look!”

The three all lean over the screen seeing a young man with dark hair, but a poliosis patch right in the front of his head, a robotic right hand, and a scar across the bridge of his nose, wearing nothing but a black underlayer and a shredded purple top. “Hey! What are you doing?” the man demands, fighting against the straps that keep him on the table.

“Calm down, Shiro.” Iverson tells him. “We just need to keep you quarantined until we run some tests.” 

“You have to listen to me! They destroy worlds!” Shiro grunts as he continues to struggle. “Aliens are coming!” he shouts and struggles harder.

“That's Shiro! The pilot of the Kerberos Mission! That guy's my hero!” Lance exclaims as all the pieces of what they heard Iverson say finally making sense in his head.

“Huh.” Hunk muses. “Guess he's not dead in space, after all.”

“Where's the rest of the crew?” Pidge questions.

“Do you know how long you've been gone?” Iverson- he and the other two are wearing the hazmat suits- questions.

“I don't know. Months? Years?” Shiro really doesn’t seem to actually how long he’s been missing- or even just not on Earth. “Look, there's no time. Aliens are coming here for a weapon. They're probably on their way. They'll destroy us. We have to find Voltron.”

“Voltron!” Pidge gasps as Lance and Hunk exchange as shocked- and slightly unsure- looking behind the blonde. 

“Sir, take a look at this. It appears his arm has been replaced with a cyborg prosthetic.” one of the other men says.

“Put him under until we know what that thing can do.” Iverson told him. 

“Don't put me under! No! There's no time!” Shiro shouts panicking, and one of the scientists grabs the back of Shiro’s neck.

“They didn't ask about the rest of the crew.” Pidge murmurs.

“What are they doing? He's a legend. They're not even gonna listen to him?” Lance questions stunned.

Pidge turns to Lance. “We have to get him out.”

Hunk stands up, raising his hands in defense. “I hate to be the voice of reason, always, but weren't we watching on TV because there was no way to get past the guards?” he questions.

“That was before we were properly motivated.” Lance says, looking at Pidge’s screen and the dome in the middle of the valley. “We've just got to think.” then looking over the ridge. “Could we tunnel in?” 

“Maybe we could get some hazmat suits and sneak in like med techs.” Pidge offers, proud of their idea.

“Or we dress up like cooks, head back to the dorms, sneak into the commissary- little late-night snack.” Hunk offers, very much wanting to get out of this situation.

“No. What we need is a distraction.” Lance decides.

All of them scream as explosion go off on the other side of the dome.

“Is that the aliens? Is that the aliens? Are they here? They got here so quick!” Hunk babbles quickly, covering his head.

“No, those explosions  **were** a distraction, for him.” Pidge points out a lone rider on a hovercycle. “The Garrison's headed toward the blast, and he's sneaking in from the other side.”

Lance pulls up the binoculars just in time to catch a person wearing a red jacket, dark pants, something covering his mouth, and long dark hair jump off the vehicle. “No way! Oh, he is not going to beat us in there!” Lance puts down the binoculars and just glares. “That guy is always trying to one-up me!” he shouts, running.

“Who is it?” Hunk questions.

“Keith!” Lance shouts back angrily.

“Who?” Pidge questions, hefting their bag back on.  
“Are you sure?” Hunk asks, louder, and running past Pidge.

“Oh, I'd recognize that mullet anywhere!” Lance shouts.

Pidge blinks twice, stunned. “Who's Keith?” they ask, taking off after the other two.

All three slide down the rock, taking off towards the dome.

* * *

 

“These readings are off the chart.” one of the men muse, then turning towards the door.  Where Keith stands before them, his jacket a vibrant red, his mouth and nose covered by a burgundy bandana, showing off only his dusk colored eyes, and true to Lance’s assessment, his hair is shorter in the front and longer in the back.  _**(I’ll admit it, I wanted Lance to be wrong. I wanted it to be something that was a joke, but nope. Lance was right, and I really didn’t want him to be, because I saw this guy and I was like “somehow I suspect he’s gonna be my favorite”. Then Lance said mullet, and I was not ready to have my fave have a mullet. Why was this the ONE THING that survived from the 80’s… and why am I suddenly okay with this?!)** _

“Hey!” all three shout, charging at the teen.

Keith slides his foot back, his hands raising. The first is thrown into the small panel off to the right. the second is thrown over Shiro’s legs. Then the third gets a hook-kick to the face, and his back slammed into the edge of the table Shiro is on. Keith jumps over the closest head, his red and white tall boots contrasting his black pants, dark blue top, but matching his red jacket and black fingerless gloves perfectly. The one thing that stands out is the small sheath sitting on a brown belt that Keith wears over his shirt and around his waist.

As he comes to Shiro’s side he yanks the bandana down and grabs Shiro’s chin. The man, groans and remains unconscious. “Shiro?” he questions, stunned. Then pulls out his knife, cutting the straps and bringing one of Shiro’s arms over his shoulder.

“Nope.” catches Keith off guard and his eyes snap up. “No, you- No, no, no. No, you don't. I'm saving Shiro.” Lance says quickly, pushing the med table out of the way so he can grab Shiro’s other arm.

“Who are you?” Keith questions.

“Who am I? Uh, the name's Lance.” he says, waiting for some recognition to dawn on Keith. When no such thing occurs he continues. “We were in the same class at the Garrison.”

“Really? Are you an engineer?” Keith asks, surprised

“No, I'm a pilot! We were, like, rivals. You know, Lance and Keith, neck and neck.” Lance honestly feels really stupid having to give this guy the low-down that he really should’ve only had to give Pidge.

“Oh, wait. I remember you. You're a cargo pilot.” Keith says, everything finally dawning on him.

“Well, not anymore. I'm fighter class now, thanks to you washing out.” Lance corrects with an annoyed glare.

“Well, congratulations.” Keith grumbles, both of them finally carrying Shiro out.

* * *

 

The Garrison force is heading back towards the dome, the fires from the explosions that Keith used as a distraction blazing behind them. Hunk pulls down the binoculars. “Oh, man. They're coming back and they do not look happy.  We've got to go.” he says, following Lance and Keith, and Pidge. “Uh, do you mind if we catch a ride with you?” as Pidge hops on the wing, Keith takes the controls, Lance maneuvering Shiro so Pidge can help him get the still unconscious man aboard.

As Hunk climbs on the back he throws the entire ride off-kilter, throwing Pidge onto the center, Lance and Shiro crash into the wing and Keith keeps a hold of the handles, kicking his feet up to get himself right back where he belongs.  **_(Though upon further inspection he may or may not have eaten the dashboard.)_ **

“Is this thing going to be big enough for all of us?” Pidge questions as Hunk sits up behind them.

“No.” Keith says simply, but throws the switch to start the turbines on the bike anyway.

“Why am I holding this guy?” Pidge demands as Lance forces them to hold Shiro’s shoulders and he moves Shiro’s lower half.

“Hey, we did all fit.” Hunk says brightly.

“Can't this thing go any faster?” Lance demands, seeing the Garrison gaining on them, his tension running high.

“We could toss out some non-essential weight.” Keith states.

“Oh, right!” Lance says brightly, then glares at the raven. “Okay, so that was an insult. I get it.”

“Big man, lean left!” Keith calls out.

“Whoa!” all of the conscious passengers cry out as the bike does an impressive left turn, causing two the Garrison’s ATVs to crash into each other. Leaving only two following them.

“Aw, man! Mr. Harris just wiped out Professor Montgomery!” Hunk cries out. “No, no. He's fine.” he corrects as they begin a steep uphill climb.

“Big man, lean right!” Keith calls out.

Once again everyone screams as they jump over a ravine and onto a narrow cut-out pass. One of the Garrison ATVs skids, while the other rolls, one still pursuits.

“Guys?” Hunk questions then manages to stammer out. “Is that a cliff up ahead?”

“Oh, no, no, no!” Lance cries.

“Yup.” Keith states, leaning forward and kicking the bike into a higher gear.

“No, no, no!” Pidge, Hunk, and Lance all shout as if that would make Keith stop. All of them scream as they run out of ground.

The Garrison car skids to a stop at the edge.

“What are you doing? You're going to kill us all!” Lance screams as he leans forward to find an edge of the bike to grab onto.

“Shut up and trust me!” Keith snaps. Twisting the handle and kicking the foot pedal back so the turbines catch the slight curve before flat ground and let them get away.

* * *

 

Shiro stands on a small desert mound, a small house with Keith’s cycle beside it. Shiro over looks the sunrise, rather staring at his arm, as Keith comes to join him. Keith his right hand onto Shiro’s shoulder as he comes to stand beside him.

“It's good to have you back.” Keith admits.  **_(Goddammit Voltron I NEED this backstory, please.)_ **

Shiro chuckles. “It's good to be back.”

“So, what happened out there? Where were you?” Keith asks as his hands slides back to his side.

“I wish I could tell you. My head's still pretty scrambled.” Shiro’s eyebrows scrunch together as he tries to remember. “I was on an alien ship, but somehow I escaped. It's all a blur.” then he turns to Keith, one thing doesn’t make sense. “How did you know to come save me when I crashed?”

Keith’s mouth opens, then closes as he prepares himself. “You should come see this.” he manages, as he starts heading back to the house.

Lance, Pidge, and Hunk stand behind the coffee table as Shiro stands before it and bside Keith as he rips a blanket off the board he was covering.

The board is filled with maps, cave drawings, writing, pushpins and string.

“What have you been working on?” Shiro asks hesitantly.

“I can't explain it, really.” Keith admits slowly. “After getting booted from the Garrison, I was kind of lost and found myself drawn out to this place. It's like something…” he tries to think of a better way to explain it. “some… energy was telling me to search.”

“For what?” Shiro prods.

“Well, I didn't really know at the time…” Keith admits, then finally reaches out towards the board. “until I stumbled across this area.” there’s two rings on the map, four different locations marked with  **X** s, the center says  **ENERGY SOURCE** . “It's an outcropping of giant boulders with caves covered in these ancient markings. Each tells a slightly different story about a blue lion, but they all share clues leading to some event, some arrival happening last night.” he looks back at Shiro, almost nonchalant. “Then, you showed up.”

All three Garrison cadets look away, ashamed that seem to be invading on something they really shouldn’t be. 

“I should thank you all for getting me out.” Shiro tells them, turning to fully face them. “Lance, right?” Shiro reaches his hand out and Lance does the same, ghosting over the cybernetic limb for a moment before looking Shiro in the eyes, smiling, and grasping back.

Shiro offers his hand towards Hunk, who currently seems to be panicking. Pidge takes the opportunity to introduce themself. “The nervous guy's Hunk. I'm Pidge.” the blonde says, shaking Shiro's hand then looks nervous before continuing. “So, did anyone else from your crew make it out?”

Shiro looks away from the golden eyes. “I'm not sure. I remember the mission and being captured. After that, it's just bits and pieces.” he says slowly.

“Yeah, sorry to interrupt, but back to the aliens.” Hunk bends down, making himself shorter than even Keith as if that’ll protect him. “Where are they now? Are they coming? Are they coming for us? Where are they at this very moment?” 

“I can't really put it together. I remember the word ‘Voltron’.” Shiro continues to explain as best he can despite the fact that he loses eye contact to try and force more memories to the surface. “It's some kind of weapon they're looking for, but I don't know why. Whatever it is, I think we need to find it before they do.”

Hunk immediately starts digging around in Pidge’s bag, much to their shock. “Well, last night, I was rummaging through Pidge's stuff, and I found this picture. Look, it's his girlfriend.” he chuckles, the picture is of Pidge and a shorter girl with similar colored hair down to her waist, both of them standing in front of a rocket.  **_(okay, everyone who’s seen this show knows what’s really in that pic, but for story sake what I’m gonna do is keep kinda where I figured stuff out about that pic.)_ **

“Hey, give me that!” Pidge snaps, snagging the picture back. “What were you doing in my stuff?” they demand as they snag their backpack back as well.

“I was looking for a candy bar.” Hunk admits, pulling a red notebook out of his back pocket. “But, then, I started reading his diary-”

“What?!” Pidge screeches, again swiping the object out of Hunk’s possession. 

“-I noticed the repeating series of numbers the aliens are searching for looks a lot like a Fraunhofer line.” Hunk continues, undeterred. 

“Frown who?” Keith questions, his arms still crossed over his chest.

“It's a number describing the emission spectrum of an element, only, this element doesn't exist on Earth. I thought it might be this ‘Voltron’. I think can build a machine to look for it, like a ‘Voltron’ Geiger Counter.” Hunk finishes explaining, a smile returning to his features.  **_(The one thing that bothers me every time I watch this episode is how Hunk VA says this line. It’s probably just accents and stuff, but I say, Geiger, where the second g sounds like a j, and I had never really heard it said like that before.)_ **

“Hunk, you big, gassy genius!” Lance says, sounding almost as proud of his friend as he is excited about this idea.

“It's pretty fascinating, really.” Hunk reaches into one of his pouches and pulls out a meticulously folded piece of paper. “The wavelength looks like this.”

“Give me that!” Keith says, snagging from Hunk’s hands with no pause. Moving back to his board, placing it beneath a photo and sliding it up to cover the rock croppings in the picture.

Everyone stares, stunned because it very obviously matches.

* * *

 

The five stand before the rock outcropping. “Okay, I admit it. This is super freaky.” Lance states.

Behind Pidge who is currently holding their satellite dish, Hunk looks down at a small readout. “I'm getting a reading.” he steps in front of Pidge and it begins to beep. Hunk leads the way, as the beeping begins to get louder as they loop around outcroppings. The beeping starts going crazy as they come into view of a hidden cave. “Whoa.”

“Whoa.” both Hunk and Pidge muse, their jaws dropped as they look over the images across the inside of the cave.

“What are these?” Shiro asks.

“These are the lion carvings I was telling you about. They're everywhere around here.” Keith says

Lance steps up to complete drawing of a lion, though the image is covered in dirt. “Hmm.” is the only noise he makes to inform anyone that he’s doing something before he reaches out to brush the dirt away. “Whoa.” Lance muses seeing the almost robotic aspects of these ancient drawings. “Whoa!” he gasps as it begins to glow blue.

Everyone looks around as all the imagery begins to glow. 

“What?” Hunk whines.

“They've never done that before.” Keith says, his usually monotonic voice shaking slightly.  **_(It’s the fact that Keith is so monotone that makes it really hard for me to write speaking words for him other than says or informs because this kid has no voice inflection!)_ **

A blue ring forms around the five of them, everyone looks down as they hear the ground begin to break. Once it gives way they all scream. Despite the waterslide awaiting them, they still continue screaming. Lance leading and going feet-first down the center, Shiro and Keith flank the younger on either side. While Hunk comes down the center as well, Pidge sitting on top of his shoulders with a tight grip on his hair.

All of them crash harshly, but no one lands on top of each other and they all seem unhurt. Just wet.

Lance pushes himself to his knees and slowly lifts his eyes, his mouth dropping open at what he sees. “They  **are** everywhere.”

Before them is a massive robotic blue lion, surrounded in a force field.

“Is this it? Is this the Voltron?” Pidge questions.

“It… must be.” Shiro sounds just as unsure as the resident genius.

“This is what's been causing all of this crazy energy out here.” Keith says as he decisively steps forward. “Looks like there's a force field around it.” 

Lance doesn’t walk in a straight line and looks at the Lion quizzically, receiving odd looks from the other three as he does this. “Does anyone else get the feeling this is staring at them?” he questions, finally setting his path straight again.

Shiro raises an eyebrow and pauses as if waiting to feel something. “No.”

“Yeah. The eyes are totally following me.” Lance murmurs, decidedly ignoring Shiro’s objecting viewpoint.

Keith reaches the edge of the force field, watching the Lion for any movement. The eyes only shine. Keith brings both hands to the force field, finding it feeling completely solid despite the slight rippling along it’s surface. “I wonder how we get through this.”

Lance scrutinizes the field. “Maybe you just have to knock.” he does, twice, yelling as blue energy follow his hand. Looking up he stunned to see the eyes begin to glow and the force field drop away.

Despite Hunk and Pidge screaming behind him Lance’s eyes widen as the image of five lions, one shielded in purple leading as a green and red flank it and yellow and blue colored lions remain on the edges. The five combine high in the sky, creating a blinding light, where a shadowed head blocks the center. The head snaps up and the eyes gleam, the robot is massive, a black body, a red right arm, a green left arm, a blue right leg and a yellow left leg. In the right hand is a flaming sword that the robots raises up over its head. Then slash down cross-body.  **_ (I’m not even gonna bother talking about the continuity problems here because you either noticed in the show, noticed when I wrote it, or when I mentioned this. Just saying that it exists.) _ **

“Whoa.” everyone manages to say, still stunned.

“Uh, did everyone just see that?” Lance checks.

“Voltron is a robot. Voltron is a huge, huge, awesome robot!” Hunk says excitedly.

“And this thing is only one part of it! I wonder where the rest of them are?” Pidge questions, mostly to themself.

“This is what they're looking for.” Shiro realizes.

“Incredible.” is all Keith can manage to say.

The Lion moves, dropping its head towards Lance specifically. It’s gigantic jaw opening and a small blue ramp meets the ground. “Hmm.” Lance muses looking to the others before heading up. Lance chuckles once before heading inside. 

A door slides open to reveal a single blue and white chair. “Huh.” Lance muses. “Hmmph.” he grunts, checking it out from the front. “Mmm hmm.” he hums as he stands in front of the seat before actually sitting down. He smirks, crossing his right leg over his left knee. “Here we go.” Much to his shock, the chair moves forward. He screams more out of shock and groans it comes to a sudden stop fast enough to give him whiplash. “Uh? Huh.” Lance looks over the projected controls. Lance laughs as the screen before him goes from blue hexagons to a very clear image of the inside of the cave.

“Whoa.” Pidge and Hunk gasp, stunned.

“All right! Very nice!” Lance agrees, but with words.

“Okay, guys, I feel the need to point out, just so that we're all aware.” Hunk points out, long-winded as always. “We are in some kind of futuristic alien cat head right now.”

Lance hears a deep purring in his head. “Whoa.” looking around because when he heard that he swore that he couldn’t even tell the others were still there. “Did you guys just hear that?”

“Hear what?” Keith questions.

“I think it's talking to me.” Lance leans forward, inspecting his option. “Hmm, um” he muses before pressing a few buttons on the projected keypad. 

The lion stands up tall and roars.

Pidge and Hunk scream, which Lance ignores as he grabs the two handles before him. “Okay. Got it. Now, let's try this.” he says with a smirk leaning all his weight into throwing the handles forward.

The lion busts through the cave wall, flying through the sky, as it begins to descend flips once, lackadaisical before moving its paws underneath itself. Blue rocket boosters come out from each foot that causes it to skim over the surface of the desert. Before taking off into the sky once more.

Pidge and Hunk are screaming enough to cover for Lance, Shiro, and Keith not doing so. Though Lance is still holding onto the handles, Pidge is holding the edge of his chair and his hood. While Shiro is braced against the chair and the inside of the cockpit to keep from falling into Pidge. Keith has his back against Shiro’s left shoulder and is pulling harshly on Lance’s seat and Hunk’s hair. Who is grabbing both the right side of Lance’s head (and hair) and the left side of Lance’s outer jacket.

“You are…  **the** **worst** … pilot! Ever!” Keith shouts.

Lance joins in the screaming as they begin a rapid descent downwards a and into a series of loops.

* * *

 

Atop the Garrison Headquarters Iverson and another soldier watch the spectacle. “What in the Sam Hill is that?” Iverson questions.

“It appears to be a flying blue lion, sir.” the brunet replies, though as Iverson turns towards him he scratches his head, confused.

* * *

 

The Lion skids to a stop and takes off running across the desert. “Isn't this awesome?” Lance questions, excited.

Hunk leans forward, tears in his eyes. “Make it stop. Make it stop.”

“I'm not making it do anything. It's like it's on autopilot.” Lance informs.

“Where are you going?” Keith questions as the Lion takes to the air once more.

“I  **just** said it's on autopilot!” Lance repeats “It says there's an alien ship approaching Earth. I think we're supposed to stop it.”

“What did it say, exactly?” Pidge demands.

“It's not like it's saying words. It's more like feeding ideas into my brain, kind of.” Lance explains as best he can.

“If this thing is the weapon they're coming for, why don't we just, I don't know, give it to them? Maybe they'll leave us alone.” Hunk offers, hopeful, then turning towards the inside of the cockpit. “Sorry, lion. Nothing personal.”

“You don't understand. These monsters spread like a plague throughout the galaxy, destroying everything in their path. There's no bargaining with them. They won't stop until everything is dead.” Shiro informs

Everyone looks to a stunned Hunk waiting for him to take his dumb idea back. “Oh. Never mind then.” he mumbles.

The Lion roars as they leave the atmosphere.

Before them, an alien ship almost identical to the one that took the crew off of Kerberos comes out of hyperspeed to stop before the Blue Lion. Everyone can only stare as their jaws hit the floor.

Hunk is the first to recover, turning towards the other occupants. “Holy crow! Is that really an alien ship?”

“They found me.” Shiro says.  **_(actually really unemotional)_ **

The ship begins to fire purple lasers at the Blue Lion “We've got to get it out of here!” Pidge shouts at Lance.

Lance yanks back on the handles. “Hang on!”

They all shout as they narrowly dodge the lasers over and over.

“All right. Okay, I think I know what to do.” Lance says, looking at the alien  **_(almost said Galra dammit)_ ** ship with a scrutinizing eye.

“Be careful, man. This isn't a simulator.” Pidge says, their nervousness showing on their face.

Lance chuckles. “Well, that's good. I always wreck the simulator.” throwing his right arm forward the Blue Lion releases a laser blast of its own from its mouth. That cuts across the side of the ship, explosions following shortly after. “Let's try this.” Lance says as he pulls both handles all the way back.

The Blue Lion dodges the lasers with spins before coming up to the side of the ship and digging its claws into the hull. The jagged cut explodes as the Lion gets away from the ship.

“Nice job, Lance.” Shiro appraises.

“I think it's time to get these guys away from our planet.” Lance says they take off away from Earth.

* * *

 

The same blue headed soldier that captured Shiro a year ago stands at the helm. Lord Zarkon, the escaped prisoner and his people found the lion. It attacked us and is heading out of the system.” 

“Follow that lion and alert all ships in the area to intercept. Capturing that Lion is your first and only priority.” the same shadow figure- Zarkon- commands. 

“Yes, Your Majesty.” then Zarkon images disappears. “Full power after the Lion!” he commands.

* * *

 

“Oh, no!” Hunk cries.

“They're gaining on us.” Pidge informs.  **_(Not entirely sure how- since Lions don’t really have windows- or why- because if they can see it, so can everyone else.)_ **

It's weird. They're not trying to shoot us. They're just chasing.” Lance points out, slightly confused.

“Okay, seriously, now we think having aliens follow us is good? I am not on board with this new direction, guys.” Hunk voices.

“Where are we?” Keith questions.

“Edge of the solar system.” Shiro says, haunted as he looks out the window. “There's Kerberos.”

“It takes months for our ships to get out this far. We got out here in five seconds.” Pidge mutters, stunned at the speed of the Lion.

A blue bordered portal with a blue, black, and white wormhole appears before the Lion.

“What is that?” Hunk questions.

“This may seem crazy, but I think the lion wants us to go through there.” Lance is in disbelief himself on the idea.

“Where does it go?” Pidge questions quickly.

“I-I don't know.” Lance admits, looking at the blonde for a moment. “Shiro, you're the senior officer here. What should we do?” both he and Pidge glance up at the eldest.

“Whatever is happening, the Lion knows more than we do. I say we trust it, but we're a team now.” he looks over at Keith and Hunk. “We should decide together.”

Hunk stares at Shiro for a moment, before moving to look at Lance. Keith looks down at his fellow pilot, as does Shiro. Pidge places a single hand on Lance’s right shoulder.

Lance glances at the blonde before turning towards the wormhole once more. “All right. Guess we're all ditching class tomorrow.”

The Lion flies through the wormhole, but before the alien ship can follow it disappears.

Everyone groans as the Lion shakes before it all stops as the Lion comes out a planet that shares the same color scheme to the one they left. 

“Whoa. That was…” Lance doesn’t have the words.

Hunk grunts then vomits. “So sorry.” he apologizes, and Lance is the only one wincing as the engineer does it again.

“I'm just surprised it took this long.” Pidge admits.

“I don't recognize any of these constellations. We must be a long, long way from Earth.” Shiro murmurs.

Lance conveys the ideas the Lion is sending to him as it once again takes off at high speed. “The lion seems to want to go to this planet. I think… I think it's going home.”


	2. Rise of Voltron Pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! If you're looking at this and going "WTF is wrong with you, this should be Targets and way back on the fifteenth", well, you're not wrong. But basically, today's literally the first day since the 13th that I haven't felt like death warmed over. I forced myself to go to class last week and with my Spring Break is this week I had planned on working a ton on both YJ and this, but that didn't happen and I pretty much suffered without much of an outlet because I couldn't spend more than an hour or so in front of a screen without feeling sick to my stomach and getting a rampaging headache to last the rest of the day. My YJ scripts take A LOT longer to do final clean-ups on than this one, so I've been working on it slowly. Though I also felt like you deserved an explanation.  
> Thanks for your patience.

**_(I was originally gonna start this part later than this, BUT it’s already like 22pgs long, so sorry for the wait, plus in all fairness this seemed like a pretty natural spot to end the first part. Otherwise, I would’ve ended probably back with the reveal of the Lion or something.)_ **

The Blue Lion breaks through the atmosphere and continues through layers of clouds.

Inside the Blue Lion, everyone is bracing against Lance’s chair, Hunk and Pidge opting to actually hold on to their friend. “Guys, personal space. Hunk, your breath is killing me.” Lance gripes.

“Um, is it just me or is anyone else having second thoughts about flying through a mysterious wormhole?” Hunk questions then face the one that took them through said wormhole. “Why are we listening to a robotic lion anyway?” 

“It got us away from that alien warship, didn't it?” Lance defends.

“I don't know if you noticed, but we're in an alien warship.” Keith points out.

“Oh, are you scared?” Lance teases.

“With you at the helm?” Keith clarifies since there are two other people here who could’ve been flying the Blue Lion. “Terrified.”

“All right, knock it off.” Shiro cuts them off before they can start really tearing into each other. “No one's happy to be in this situation, but we're here now. If we want to get through this, we've got to do it together.”

“So, what do we do?” Pidge asks worriedly.

“First, we find out where we're headed. Lance?” Shiro directs his attention back to the pilot.

Lance looks down sadly. “I don't know.” he looks up and sees everyone looking at him. “I'm sorry. The lion's not talking to me anymore.” his attention shifts slightly. “Wait! Wait, wait, wait! Shh! Listen. I think I hear something.”

“I'm hearing it, too.” Keith murmurs, surprised.

“It's, uh- It's kind of a- a high-pitched squeal?” Hunk tries to confirm before the sound becomes one they all recognize and the smell hits them as well, all of them covering their noses and groaning, with Lance smirking they know it was on purpose. 

“Come on, Lance!” Keith gripes.

“But seriously, there's a castle up ahead,” Lance says with a smile.

“Wow.” is all they can manage as they take in the pure white four-towered castle, with outside arctic blue accents on each tower and the center seems almost spire shaped with a large arctic blue accent in the center.

The Blue Lion’s eyes glow yellow, as it slowly begins its descent to the castle, and in response, each point on the castle glows blue in return, as the accents light up as well. As the Lion’s feet touch down before the gigantic door Shiro is the one to speak first. “Keep your guard up.”

“Something wrong?” Pidge questions, confused.

“My crew was captured by aliens once. I'm not going to let it happen again.” Shiro replies simply.

They all file out of the Lion and see the castle from ground level, stunned by the size. 

They all gasp at the sudden movement of the Blue Lion. 

“No! I knew it was going to eat us! No!” Hunk whimpers

The Blue Lion roars, and the doors to the castle open to them.

Shaky, but calming slowly Hunk stands up from behind Shiro and looks back at the Blue Lion. “Oh, the door is open. Guess I was wrong about you.”

As they walk in the castle remains dark and dust thickens the air. 

“Hello?” Hunk calls out, the other four stopping dead when they hear him break the silence, but it only echoes. Hunk shrugs as everyone slowly relax and start looking around. 

“From the size of the lion, I expected these steps to be bigger.” Pidge comments, seeing the staircase before them.

As if responding to the blonde’s voice the hexagon in the center of the ceiling blinks twice before the edges light up in blue. The light continues outward to lights that shine down on the humans and drenches them in blue light. “Hold for identity scan.” a computerized voice says, as the diamond in the floor around them also begins to glow.

“What?” Pidge questions.

As blue light cylinders encircle each of them Shio turns to face towards the top of the staircase. “Why are we here? What do you want with us?”

“Whoa!” Lance says as the lights on the walls and down the hall, they came from light up.

“Whoa.” Pidge agrees, seeing more lights begin to turn on down the hall at the top of the stairs. “I guess we're going that way.”

* * *

 

“Hello?” Hunk calls out with nothing but his echo to reply as they walk down the right side of open space. “Hello?” he tries again as they descend a staircase. A door opens before them leading to a circular room ringed by pillars, markings on the floor and a small staircase. “Hello?”

Lance steps forward walking to the center of the room “Where are we?”

Pide looks down at the console in the center of the room. “It's some kind of control room.” the hexagon in the center blinks before a blue symbol appears above it.

Everyone is stunned as two of the markings on the floor rise up to reveal shadows of people inside pods. 

“Are these guys… dead?” Hunk questions, hiding behind the control panel.

The pod closest to Lance opens, revealing a dark-skinned girl with flowing white hair, Nordic blue eyes, small marking on her cheekbones and dressed in a floor-length regal dress. Her eyes snap open as she gasps, going to take a step, her hand reaching out- “Father!” is all she manages before she falls forward. Lance barely managing to catch her before she hits the floor.

Bracing her, he lets her slowly stand up as she feels comfortable. Once she’s looking up at him from so close Lance blushes harshly, a dopey smile trying to hide it as he raises an eyebrow and gives a shining half smile. “Hello.” he says dramatically, letting his tone fall lower than normal.

“Who are you? Where am I?” the woman questions, looking both scrutinizingly at him and at the room around her.

“I'm Lance. And you're right here in my arms.” he continues to flirt.

The woman raises a white eyebrow. “Your ears.” she begins, confused.

Lance’s eyebrows shoot up, his expression changing completely as he looks out of the corner of his eye as if he could see what she does. “Yeah?” he drops one eyebrow looking to her, confused.

“They're hideous.” the woman cringes. “What's wrong with them?”

Lance glares at the woman, releasing his hold on her instantly. “Nothing's wrong with them! They heard exactly what you said about them!” he objects, though is caught off guard as she grabs his right arm, spins him around so it’s behind him, grabbing his left ear and forcing Lance to his knees.

“Who are you? Where is King Alfor? What are you doing in my castle?” she demands angrily.

Lance drops his left hand away, deciding to just deal with it and answer her. “A giant blue lion brought us here. That's all we know.”

“How do you have the Blue Lion?” she asks, stunned and letting Lance go. “What happened to its paladin? What are you all doing here?” she asks the other four people in the room. “Unless -How long has it been?” she asks slowly as she finally calms down and starts to think.

“We don't know what you're talking about.” Shiro admits, slowly, decidedly ignoring the fact that Hunk is hiding behind him again. “Why don't you tell us who you are? Maybe we can help.”

“I am Princess Allura of Planet Altea.” she says strongly before walking to the center of the room. “I've got to find out where we are and how long we've been asleep.” she places her hands on dark sides of the console.

Pidge’s eyes go wide as projections appear. “Okay, that's how that works.”

Behind Allura the second pod opens, revealing an equally regally dressed ginger man with a large mustache, similar markings on his cheekbones, and cobalt blue eyes. He gasps, a cowlick falling to the center of his forehead as he shakes himself and shouts at the unknown person standing nearby. Which again, happens to Lance. “Enemy combatants!” he shouts, jumping at the teen, who easily dodges and watches as the ginger lands near Allura’s pod with a grunt. Fumbling the landing, as Allura barely glances back and rolls her eyes. “Quiznak! You're lucky I have a case of the old ‘sleep chamber knees’.” he tells Lance beginning exaggerated arm movements. “Otherwise, I'd grab your head like this,” his arms are crossed in an X in front of his chest “wrap you up like so-” he moves his before simply crossing his arms “One, two, three-” he counts down on his fingers and snaps for dramatic effect. “Sleepytime!”

“Well, before you did that, I'd-” Lance starts, stepping forward with a chop, snapping his hand upward then stepping back to do a flying crane kick. Each move accented by a dramatic (and wrong) sound effect. “Like that.”

“Really? How could you do that when I've already come at you with this?” he demands, then dropping into a fighting stance and shooting his hand out three times with equally as bad sound effects as Lance.

“Man, these guys are good.” Hunk murmurs in appreciation of the tech in the room.

The computer beeps and Allura’s eyes go wide. “It can't be.” she gasps.

The ginger turns to her instantly, worry in his tone. “What is it?”

“We've been asleep for 10,000 years.” Allura says, horrified.

* * *

 

_ The sky behind Allura glows bright orange as it is on fire itself and not just the planet around it. Alien ships, similar to the one that found the crew on Kerberos and chased the teens out of their own solar system, fire down upon the planet. A projection shows a purple-faced alien with sharp teeth and dark armor.  _

_ “Zarkon.” A man with white hair that comes down to his shoulders, dressed in white armor that is patterned with gold, his blue cloak falling behind him, says darkly. _

_ “Your fleet has been destroyed, Alfor. I will be there shortly to claim Voltron.” Zarkon states simply, his projection disappearing to show one of his ships already firing down upon them. _

_ The entire room shakes with the force of the blow, then it all stops as everything turns black, the only light is the flames behind them and the sparks falling from the ceiling. _

_ Allura turns to Alfor. “Father, we must form Voltron and fight before it's too late!” she begs desperately. _

_ “It's already too late.” Alfor tells her as he struggles to stand back up. “We  _ **_must_ ** _ send the lions away. We can't risk them falling into Zarkon's hands.” _

_ “We can't give up hope!” Allura objects. _

_ Alfor steps down to stand before her, his left hand near her chin. “I'm sorry, daughter. If all goes well, I will see you again soon.” as her eyes begin to show anger his fingertips glow blue and Allura begins to lose consciousness. _

_ “Father!” she says, reaching out as he holds her shoulders to keep her from collapsing. _

_ “I love you.” Alfor says strongly before Allura’s vision goes black. _

* * *

 

“Planet Altea and all of the planets in our solar system have been destroyed.” Allura speaks aloud, the shock travels across the ginger’s face for a moment before he simply closes his mouth. “Coran, Father is gone. Our entire civilization…” Allura has murder in her eyes as she growls his name. “Zarkon.”

Shiro gasps, an image flashing before his eyes. “Zarkon?”

“He was the King of the Galra. A vile creature and enemy to all free people.” Allura gets progressively angrier with each word she has to speak about him.

“I remember now…” Shiro murmurs. “I was his prisoner.”

“He's still alive?” Allura gasps. “Impossible!”

“I can't explain it, but it's true. He's searching for a superweapon called Voltron.” Shiro conveys all that he can remember at the moment.

“He's searching for it because he knows it's the only thing that can defeat him, and that's exactly why we must find it before he does.” Allura says strongly.

* * *

 

In a lowered center, surrounded by floating purple crystal a hag in a cloak, surges with new energy. Her white hair falling out of her hood, her yellow eyes glowing as the purple sigil below her shines.

* * *

 

Zarkon looks out at the space before him, the hag walking up from behind him. “The Blue Lion has returned, and now I feel a resurgence of Altean energy.” she stops by his side. Their height differences are staggering.

“Alfor's daughter lives?” Zarkon questions, turning towards the hag. “How?”

“I know not, but it is time to reclaim what is rightfully ours.” she says darkly, the blood red line that runs down her face and through her lip shows her knowing smirk.  **_(She actually sounds a lot like Ventress which I think is what made me think at this point that she was Altean- it’s not actually her, it’s Cree Summers, not Nika Futterman, but still, I didn’t realize it was supposed to be a revealed thing… oops.)_ **

“Yes.” Zarkon says darkly. “I shall wipe that foul race from the universe forever and take back Voltron. Contact my commanders.”

* * *

 

A wire glows purple where it is connected before it sparks and detaches itself, the large cybernetic limb glows as the wearer brings it up to inspect it and slams the fist closed. The purple headed, with large ears, a soldier wearing dark red armor except where the cybernetic arm is bound to his shoulder by a purple beam. 

“Emperor Zarkon requests an audience.” a male voice says.

No sooner does Zarkon appear on the projection. “Commander Sendak, the Princess of Altea is alive and hiding in your sector. We believe she alone holds the whereabouts of the remaining lions. Your battle fleet is the closest to her location. Retrieve her and the lions. With them all, the Galra Empire will be unstoppable.”

Sendak remains kneeling, hand over  **_(what I’m assuming is)_ ** his heart. “I fight for the empire. I conquer in the name of Galra. No foe has ever stood in my way and none ever will.” he says darkly. “Vrepit sa!” Zarkon’s image disappears and Sendak stands. “Set a course for Arus.”

* * *

 

Coran stands beside Allura, who is slaving away over the control panel, trying hard to keep only compassion in his voice. “Princess, you must eat. It's been 10,000 years.”

“I'm not hungry.” Allura denies instantly.

“Man, 10,000 years?” Lance muses, standing in the second ring of the room to give the aliens at least some semblance of privacy for a conversation that really doesn’t involve them in anyway. “That's like one thousand plus ten.”

Keith turns to the brunet. “That's times ten.”

“Whatever, dropout.” Lance grumbles, ignoring Keith return glare.

“I haven't eaten since breakfast and I'm starving.” Hunk muses, looking at the floating tray with green goo- that is apparently supposed to be food- on it.

“Yeah, but you've thrown up, like, five times.” Pidge points out.

“Hmm, good point.” Hunk reaches out and grabs some of the green goo. Shoving it in his mouth and immediately gagging at the taste.

“I can't believe your civilization created such advanced technology 10,000 years ago.” Shiro states, continuing to take in every detail of the room. “It must have been an incredible place.”

Hunk groans at the taste of his second helping of goo, which he willing took in the first place, and Pidge decidedly turns away from. 

“Yes, it was…”  Coran says wistfully, then looking over to Allura. “but now it is gone and we're the last Alteans alive.” Allura’s composure shatters before the older man’s eyes and he moves gracefully to comfort her. Allowing her to throw her arms around his neck and sob softly.

Allura’s ear twitches hearing squeaking. Surprised and confused Allura follows the sound. Finding four mice in her pod. She blushes at their continued squeaking. “Looks like we're not the last, after all.”

An alarm blares, the screen on the console turning red and showing a Galra Battleship.

“A Galra battleship has set its tracker to us!” Coran shouts dramatically.

“How did they find us?” Allura questions, her voice trembling slightly.

“I'm not sure, but I bet it's Keith's fault.” Lance can’t resist the chance for an underhanded jab.

“Say whatever you've got to say to make yourself feel better.” Keith brushes off. “After getting us stuck on the other side of a wormhole!” Keith turns to fully shout at Lance.

Lance immediately gets in Keith face “I'll stick you in a wormhole!”

Shiro physically separates the two of them, “Stow it, cadets!” while ignoring Lance’s offended look and gesture. “This is no time to place blame. It's time to work as a team.” he looks almost directly at Keith for that one, before turning to Coran. “How long before they arrive?”

Coran looks down at his fingers. “At their speed?” his fingers move as he does the math. “Oh, well, carry the two…” then seems confident he has the answer. “I'd say probably a couple of days.”

“Good. Let them come!” Allura states, staring down the five humans before her. “By the time they get here, you five will have reformed Voltron, and together, we will destroy Zarkon's empire!”

Hunk burps as he finishes licking his fingers. “Sorry. Food goo.” his stomach rumbles, obviously not a fan.

“Princess, there are five of these lions. How are we going to find the rest?” Shiro asks the question on all their minds with a look that tells the two aliens that he won’t take a half-baked answer.

The mice squeak, looking up at Allura.

* * *

 

Allura steps onto the same platform where she last saw her father. The pale blue light glows down over her. “King Alfor connected the Lions to Allura's life force. She alone is the key to the Lions' whereabouts.” Coran explains.

Allura’s eyes snap open and star systems expand outwards taking up the whole room. “Whoa!” all the humans gasp, stunned by the alien power.

“These are coordinates.” Pidge realizes quickly, able to make sense of the repeating pattern even though the symbols aren’t ones they recognize. A holographic image of a planet, with the image of two lions- one is obvious the Blue Lion, while the other is Black in color and larger, with what almost looks like wings on it’s back- pointing to the planet. “The Black Lion looks like it's in the same location as the Blue Lion.”

“Look at your primitive synapses firing away in their little brain cage.” Coran teases the brainiac.

“Very observant. That's because the Black Lion is in the castle.” Allura appreciates. 

“To keep the Black Lion out of Zarkon's hands, King Alfor locked it in the castle. It can only be freed if the other four lions are present.” Coran continues.

“As you have found, the Lions choose their pilots. It is a mystical bond and cannot be forced.” Allura states strongly. “The quintessence of the pilot is mirrored in his lion. Together, they form something greater than science can explain.”

Allura reaches out and the systems rotate with the movement of her hand. “The Black Lion is the decisive head of Voltron. It will take a pilot who is a born leader and in control at all times, someone whose men will follow without hesitation.” the image of the Black Lion stills before Shiro. “That is why, Shiro, you will pilot the Black Lion.”

Again the princess uses a simple flick of the wrist to move the systems. “The Green Lion has an inquisitive personality and needs a pilot of intellect and daring.” the image comes to a stop before the blonde, their eyes following its image. “Pidge, you will pilot the Green Lion.” the smallest gives a small, but emotional smile.

“The Blue Lion-” Allura begins, not even starting to move anything before Lance cuts her off.

“Hold up, let me guess. Takes the most handsome slash best pilot of the bunch?” Lance finishes with a smirk and calm side-eye.

The amount Allura is irritated is obvious by just one glance at her face. “The Yellow Lion is caring and kind.” she spins the projection with both hands. “Its pilot is one who puts the needs of others above his own. His heart must be mighty. As the leg of Voltron, you will lift the team up and hold them together.” Hunk looks at the image stopped before him, making sure she actually means him.

An image of appears in the palms of Allura’s hands. “”The Red Lion is temperamental and the most difficult to master. It's faster and more agile than the others, but also more unstable.” she releases the image, letting it gently skim towards the chosen pilot. “Its pilot needs to be someone who relies more on instincts than skill alone.” slowly stopping before Keith. “Keith, you will fly the Red Lion.”

Lance had been smirking as she described the pilot, though once he heard Keith’s name he had been shocked and offended. “What? This guy?” he questions in disbelief.

Keith glares for a moment but listens once he hears Allura continue. “Unfortunately, I cannot locate the Red Lion's coordinates yet. There must be something wrong with the castle. After 10,000 years, it might need some work.” she offers a small chuckle to dissuade worry.

“Don't worry, we'll find it soon. They don't call me ‘The Coranic’ for nothing.” Coran says confidently, though it drops once no one says anything or laughs at his joke. “It's because it sounds like "mechanic.” So Coranic, mechanic. It's not-” he tries to explain. “It doesn't sound exactly like it. It's similar.”

The image before Keith solidifies and roars, much to his and Lance’s shock. The other now solidified Lions join Red, before melding into a flash of light. “Once all the lions are united, you will form Voltron,” Allura explains at it too now has a solid shape and stands the height of the room behind her. “the most powerful warrior ever known, the Defender of the Universe.” the image fades slowly.

“Awesome!” Lance admits.  **_(this is not Hunk, he says the next thing, not this CC, trust me that was definitely Lance.)_ **

“Oh Wait.” everyone turns to Hunk instantly. “Okay, we're going to be in there and flying lions. Got that part. How do lions turn into legs? Is this going to be a long trip? I have to pee. Do you people pee?” he questions in quick succession.

Ignoring the decidedly… odder… questions Shiro speaks up, taking charge instantly. “We don't have much time. Pidge and I will go after the Green Lion.” Hunk mopes. “Lance, you take Hunk and get the yellow one.” Lance smiles. Shiro places his hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Keith, you stay here. If you locate that Red Lion, go get it.”

“In the meantime, I'll get this castle's defenses ready. They'll be sorely needed.” Allura decides.

“I'll ready a pod and load the coordinates so that you can reach the Green Lion.” Coran tells them.

* * *

 

The Blue Lion and the Altean Pod leave the castle together only separating once they’re above the planet. The Pod going left while the Blue Lion goes right.

* * *

 

Two control posts rise from the platform and begin to glow as Allura places her hand on them. Creating wormholes identical to the one that brought the humans to Arus before the pod and the Blue Lion.

* * *

 

“We can only keep the wormholes that lead to the other lions open for two of your Earth hours, so you'll have to be quick about your work.” Coran informs the humans. “The good news is that according to my readings, both planets are relatively peaceful. So, if you do get stuck, they could be relaxing places to live out the rest of your lives.” Everyone’s eyes go wide at his implications. “Enjoy the trip!” he says brightly as the two ships get pulled in.

“Wait…” Pidge mumbles  
“What?” Shiro questions quietly.  
“Wait! What?!”Lance shouts.

“Oh no. I did not receive the memo on this.” Hunk objects just before the two ships fly through their wormholes.

* * *

 

The Pod exits it’s wormhole, before a bright blue, almost neon green, and a pale grey planet.

In their hands, Pidge holds a small projection of the planet, showing their and Shiro’s location and the Green Lion’s. Shiro keeps his head on a constant swivel, easily able to see where Pidge isn’t looking for such a short companion.

* * *

 

Pidge ducks under a branch on a tree that Shiro moves away as they come to a beach. “Look!” Pidge points out an intricately carved wood boat, topped with a lion head. Both of them gasp at the craftsmanship.

Something feels out of place and both look to their left to find a man-sized sloth standing beside them. Terrified beyond logical thought Pidge turns around races up Shiro, ignoring the man’s shock and the fact that one of their shoes lands on top Shiro’s head as they race to hide behind the man, but remain off the ground. For Shiro once his shock at Pidge’s movement- and the giant sloth- subsides he lets Pidge hide behind him and grip his shoulders and stand on his thigh.

They wait in anticipation for what the Sloth will do, all it does is bleat and zone in on the symbol on the back of Pidge’s device to find the Green Lion.

“It's just a… whatever that thing is.” Pidge says, unsure but far less terrified. It makes a noise once more before walking off, leaving both of them shocked and Pidge hopping off of Shiro as it shows them almost no attention. Halfway to the canoe it turns around and gestures for them to follow. “I-uh-I think he wants us to get in his canoe.” Pidge says, feeling crazy for just saying that.

Shiro shrugs. “Then I guess we should go.”

“Huh?” Pidge questions, confused.

“I've been locked up by aliens for a year.” Shiro says nonchalantly and starts following the giant sloth. “This is nothing.”

**_(Okay, if there is actually a name for this alien species- I don’t know if there is and honestly, part of me really doesn’t want to go looking considering how much I’d have to dig for it for only this one part of this one episode. However, if someone knows it- for a fact!- then I’ll change it. Otherwise, Sloth is what it shall continue to be called.)_ ** __

* * *

 

Inside the canoe, with Pidge sitting in front, the sloth guiding it with a double ended paddle, and Shiro in back the humans get to see the alien planet pass them by slowly.  **_(Which is actually the opposite of how a canoe works, canoes can have three people in them, but when they do there are two paddlers, one in the front and one in the back. The one in the middle doesn’t have to do squat, and canoe paddles are single paddles, with the person in the back controlling direction with their strokes and the person in front helping move the canoe in that direction. {Hahaha, look at all my useless information that I just have! I literally didn’t need to look any of that up.})_ **

Yellow creatures with big ears, three green eyes, three sets of limbs, and fluffy white tails pop out of the tall grass and squeak at the passersby.

Pidge chuckles at the display, Coran was definitely right, there’s even a rainbow behind them. Over the top of a flooded cave the creatures continue to greet them, though the Lion symbol is what holds the humans’ attention. “I wonder if Hunk and Lance are having as good a time as us.” Pidge muses.

* * *

 

The Lion is spinning harshly as Lance and Hunk are screaming inside as alarms blare. 

“Oh, no! No, no, no! Oh! Oh, no!” Hunk cries.

The Blue Lion is being chased by two small fighters. Who fire missiles at the Blue Lion, who dodges as the two occupants continue to scream their heads off.  The Blue Lion is struck on the side and both grunt from the impact, and scream even louder once they realize they’re falling. 

“I thought Coran said these planets were peaceful!” Hunk shouts angrily. 

“Maybe ‘peaceful’ means something else in Altean!” Lance gripes, pushing the handles forward slightly before yanking them back harshly. 

The Lion front paws ignite, then the back, barely avoiding enemy fire before skimming the surface.

The Blue Lion flies over a crater where ground-to-air guns shoot at them as they pass over.

Hunk groans as he stands up, looking down at the projection of the Yellow Lion’s location. “According to the coordinates, we're right on top of the Yellow Lion.” he directs Lance’s location to it as well. “It's below there, where they're mining for the ore.” the image pops up and zooms in to give the pilot a better look at where he’s trying to get to. “They don't even know the lion is there. Or maybe they just got here and they're digging for the lion? What do you think, Lance?” Hunk rambles.

“Who cares? Just go get it!” Lance shouts, clearly stressed out. “I'm dropping you down there.” he says more collected.

“Me? Down there? No. No, no, no.” Hunk tries to object.

“Yes, I'll cover you!” Lance says as he leads the Blue Lion closer to the ground.

The Blue Lion lands in a pounce, losing the fighters, then jumping on everyone that’s been firing at them from the ground. The Blue Lion takes off towards the mine.

“What if the Yellow Lion doesn't work? What if I can't get in the mine? What if I start crying?” Hunk rambles tears coming to his eyes. “Too late. I'm already crying!”

“Sorry, no time for questions.” Lance decides, pressing a button that appears on his dash.

The floor drops out from under Hunk and he screams. Then continues to scream as the Blue Lion spits him out as it slows to a stop. Hunk hits the ground rolling, he groans with every rotation but doesn’t loosen his ball. Then grunts and splays out as he hits a rock. Landing on his stomach.

The Blue Lion blocks the fire that is now aimed towards a very open Hunk. 

Hunk makes his way to the elevator, the fire hitting the outside of the cave thanks to Lance’s cover. Hunk opens the control panel, mumbling to himself. “Yeah, sure, just drop me off in an alien planet. That's cool, man. It's only occupied by mean purple aliens that want to  **kill me,** but whatever.” he grabs two wires. Sparking them, but nothing is engaging. “Just ignore them and go connect with a big, yellow, mechanical cat. Easy-peasy. Yeah. That all makes a ton of sense to me.” he says sarcastically, but the machine whirs and starts to take him down. 

Once he enters the cave the drawings begin to glow yellow. Now out of danger of being shot he stands up and fully appreciates them. “Cool.”  At the bottom of the mine the images that are in pristine condition despite the heavy shaking. “Okay, I'm in a giant hole. Now what, Hunk?” On the floor behind him a lion glows. “Huh?” the images continue to light up until they show a large yellow ring on the wall. “Whoa. Pretty. How am I going to get through that?” he wonders, then thinks about what he saw earlier and turns around to see a riding drill. Humming with the thoughts of an idea.

* * *

 

The Blue Lion fires a laser with its tail. Only to get one shot back in its face. 

Lance grunts at the impact. The Lion zeros in on three fighters coming down for another shot. Lance throws left arm forward with as much force as he can. 

The Blue Lion takes off once more, firing shots at the fighters.

* * *

 

Hunk breaks through the wall, gasping at the gigantic yellow lion that stares down at him from within its force field.

* * *

 

Blue rockets up, before turning back around and firing more shots from its tail as it heads back at the fighters. Reaching out and crunching on in its jaw. The rockets under its paws engage and they can only watch as the three other fighters take off towards the mine entrance. 

“Oh, no!” Lance gasps, realizing what they’re doing and forcing Blue to follow.

The fighters hit the mine before Blue takes out one with its tail laser.  However, there was already a missile launching. 

Lance’s eyes go wide. “Hunk!” he cries out just before the explosion goes off and the entire entrance is caked in black smoke. Lance is left gaping and struggling to comprehend.

* * *

 

“I know the Princess said this is supposed to be my lion, but what if she's wrong?” Pidge questions to themself. “She's probably not wrong. She's a princess,” they mutter. “but I'm not a pilot, even though I've always wanted to be a pilot.” they think it over, putting their chin in the hand. “I mean, I read all the fighter manuals, but never got to fly the simulator.” the sloth looks to Shrio who smiles and shrugs. “But hey, I can't be that worse than Lance. He crashed all the time.” Shiro continues to hold his shrug until the sloth stops looking at him like he has all the answers. “What if I get in there and it doesn't respond? What if I get in there and it's too big and my feet don't touch the pedals?” Pidge suddenly sits up very straight. “What if there aren't even pedals?!”

“You're rambling.” Shiro chuckles. “Listen…” Shiro says calmly. “our commander on the Kerberos Mission is the smartest man I ever met, and he always said, _“If you get too worried about what could go wrong,_ ” Pidge gasps, their eyes widening before smiling softly. “ _you might miss a chance to do something great."_ ”

Pidge gasps at the scene before them. A stepped pyramid, the top covered in vines, with a defined walkway leading up to it, lion statues on either side of the walkway.

The canoe comes to an easy stop. The sloth waves to Pidge and Shiro as they make their way up the walkway.

A lion head cut in a  relief into the walkway suddenly glows green, more images leading up the pyramid.

Shiro looks on intrigued, but as Pidge starts almost numbly walking forward he smiles fondly.

Cracks in the pyramid begin to glow as Pidge approaches its base.

“Go. Be great.” Shiro says simply but strongly.

Pidge smiles brightly, heading up the pyramid. Climbing over vines blocking the steps and eventually making their way to the top of the heap. Though they’re crouched over and panting by the time they make it there. “Uh?” they mumble confused as they see they’re alone on the top.

The wind blows, but a suddenly growling catches Pidge’s attention and they look down. Seeing a golden glow beneath their feet. They jump in with no second thoughts letting out a “Whoo-hoo-hoo!” as the area suddenly glows shines green.

The Green Lion roars loud enough to stun Shiro, who is leaning against a pillar, off his balance. Giving him enough time to look over and see the Green Lion burst out of the vines in another bright flash of green light. The Kerberos Pilot smiles fondly.

* * *

 

Lance narrowly avoids the shots being fired at him. 

“Hunk, come on! Please, buddy!” he screams as one of the shots hits and throws him forward in his seat. 

The Blue Lion turns and fires a shot from it’s mouth at the two fighters coming from behind. Getting hit in the chest then in the back.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Going down! We're going down!” Lance panics, then pulling the two handles back. 

The Blue Lion crashes harshly onto its back, tumbling twice before finding its feet and digging its claws into the ground. The Blue Lion stands slowly, electricity crackling and it’s eyes flicker.

Lance groans, pushing himself upright as alarms blare and red lights flash in the cockpit. Lance sees the three fighters closing in, “Oh, no.” and with his Lion’s warning lights he knows there’s no way he can get out of the way.

The lead fighter launches two missiles at the Lion.

Lance’s eyes go wide before he turns away from the screen, bracing for impact.

The ground opens up before the Blue Lion, revealing the Yellow Lion which appears more heavily armored than it’s counterpart. Breaking the ground just right of the missiles the Yellow Lion jumps in front of the Blue Lion, dropping its lead (left) shoulder so the armor on its back takes the brunt of the hit. 

Smoke clouds over, but from the smoke, the Yellow Lion jumps out. Charging at the fighters, jumping high over them and crashing down on top of them. Destroying them. One of the destroyed fighters crackles on the bottom of the Yellow Lion’s jaw at it stands, eyes flashing. 

“You okay, Lance?” Hunk asks.

“Hunk!” Lance cries, relieved. “I thought you were dead! You jumped in front of those shots to save my life!”

Hunk chuckles and his image appears on the screen before Lance. “Actually, I was trying to get out of the way. Thankfully, what this lacks in speed, it more than makes up for in armor. Man, can it take a beating!” shots are fired from behind the Yellow Lion. “Ooh.”

More than a dozen fighters are firing and heading towards the two Lions. “We've got incoming!”

Allura’s image appears on the right side of Lance’s screen. “Paladins, please hurry back. I can't hold the wormhole much longer.”

“Let's get out of here!” Lance calls, both Lions instantly taking to the skies.

A shot hits the Yellow Lion, the jarring nearly knocking Hunk into the dash. The Yellow Lion spins out of control.

Hunk groans. “Not this again.” throwing his hand over his mouth as he swallows.

“Quit screwing around, Hunk! The wormhole is closing!” Lance calls out annoyed.

The two Lions make it through just before the wormhole closes.

* * *

 

In the observation room, Allura stands on the center podium once again bathed in blue light. The door beeps, revealing Hunk and Lance, who are rubbing their heads and lower backs respectively. 

Allura turns to them as they come to stand beside Shiro and Pidge. “You made it.” she says, breathing a sigh of relief.

“Yeah, just barely.” Lance gripes, rolling his left shoulder. “That was a nightmare. I almost puked out there.” his eyes go wide, recognizing the feeling. “I felt like Hunk!” 

Hunk looks to Lance mournfully. “Think how I felt. I am Hunk.” 

Pidge turns to Shiro. “Yeah. We had a tough time, too.” giving the elder a dopey smile.

“Did we find the Red Lion yet?” Shiro asks.

“Allura just located it. There's a bit of good news and bad news.” Coran says, stepping forward and then grabbing his mustache. “The good news is, the Red Lion's nearby.” he releases his mustache and crosses his arms. “The bad news is, it's onboard that Galra ship now orbiting Arus.” however he brightens up almost instantly. “But wait, good news again. We're Arus!”

“They're here already?” Shiro questions, stunned.

“Yes. Guess my calculations were a bit off. Finger counting- It's more of an art than a science.” Coran explains, then turns with an “Hmm?” as the projector turns on.

Revealing the same purple headed, robotically armed, alien that Zarkon commanded. “Princess Allura, this is Commander Sendak of the Galra Empire.” everyone is stunned by the news. “I come on behalf of Emperor Zarkon, Lord of the Known Universe. I am here to confiscate the lions. Turn them over to me, or I will destroy your planet.” with that he’s gone.

“All right, let's not panic.” Shiro says calmly.

Hunk turns to him like he’s gone crazy. “Not panic? Th-the scary purple alien thing is driving his battleship toward us. We only have four lions-”

“Technically, only three working lions.” Pidge points out.

Hunk puts a hand on Pidge’s shoulder. “That's right. Thank you, Pidge.” he says sarcastically then picks up where he left off as he walks closer to the center of the room. “Three working lions and a castle that's, like, 10,000 years old-”

Once again Hunk is cut off, this time by Coran. “Actually, it's 10,600 years old. You see, it was built by my grandfather-”

Hunk is the one that cuts him off, physically. “Thanks, Coran. Thank you for that. See? Now is the perfect time to panic!” he snaps at Shiro.

“Wait! This castle has a particle barrier we can activate.” Allura says brightly.

“Girl, you've already activated my par-” Lance starts.

“Lance!” Shiro reprimands.

An image pops up on the projection. “The particle barrier won't hold Sendak's ion cannon forever. The Galra technology must have advanced since we fought them last.”

“Panic now?” Hunk asks Shiro.

“No. We've just got to figure out our plan of action, aaand figure it out quickly.” Shiro tells the teen strongly.

“I say we pop through a wormhole and live to fight another day.” Lance pipes up.

“I second that. Yes. We tried to find all the lions, right? We gave it the old college try. Couldn't do it. We only have three. We can't form Voltron.” Hunk slows slightly, trying to think of what they could make with three Lions. Which ends up being the three Lions all in a row, connecting each other by biting the tail of the one in front of them“I guess we could form a snake. Or a worm! To go through that hole, Lance, that you were talking about.”

“Then, it's settled.” Lance says calmly, walking up to the middle podium “Allura, you ride with me. One of you take the old guy.” ignoring the way that Coran steams at his comment.

“We can't just abandon Arus.” Pidge snaps. “The Galra will keep destroying planets and capturing prisoners until we stop them.”

“Okay.” Hunk appeases. “If we run, then maybe Sendak will follow us and leave this planet alone, like when we left Earth. We form the snake-worm thingamajig and we- ssssss- out of here.”

“Sendak could destroy the planet then come after us anyway.” Keith points out, standing firm. “Staying is our only option.”

“Here's an option: shut your quiznak.” Lance snaps, stepping in front of Keith on the other side of the podium and making a zip to show what he really meant to say. With his back turned he misses the utterly stunned looks on Allura and Coran’s faces.

“I don't think you're using that word correctly.” Keith says.

“What do you know, Mullet?” Lance demands getting in Keith’s face.

The shorter teen returns the favor. “We're staying.” he snarls.

“Leaving!” Lance shouts.

“Staying!” Pidges screams.

“Snake!” Hunk joins in the argument.

“Guys, stop!” Shiro snaps, the shouting stops, and the opposing sides split. “Princess Allura, these are your lions. You've dealt with the Galra Empire before. You know what we're facing better than any of us. What do you think is the best course of action?” he asks her specifically.

Allura’s eyes go wide. “I- I don't know.”

“Perhaps your father can help.” Coran offers lowly.

Allura turns to her advisor, unsure how to ask the hundreds of questions now flooding through her mind. “My father?” is all she manages to ask, but really it’s also the only thing she needs to. 


	3. Rise of Voltron: Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this took me so long, I have no excuse for this, but I won't deny that me being PO'd at S8 definitely didn't help matters.

**Part Three:**

**_(Hehe, yay you wish, but this is literally 22 minutes from the end- and the last chapter was already like twenty pages, so, yeah. In all honesty, I actually feel like this works too. Unlike traditional shows Netflix doesn’t do commercials, and even when something is put on Netflix from TV you can tell where they have the commercial breaks built-in, but I feel like this would totally be where they’d put one if they needed to.)_ **

The door opens before the two Alteans. Allura looks at the darkly colored room in shock. “Coran, what is this?” she asks as she walks into the room.

“King Alfor knew there was a chance he might never see you again. So, his memories, his very being, were stored in this computer for you.” Coran explains as Allura gets close enough to see a pulsing orb in the center of the platform before her.

Allura raises her hand towards the orb, it surges in size as it rises upwards then explodes. Taking away the room and filling it with a field of pink blossoms that turns into rolling hills and mountains to surround the private nook.

Alfor’s image appears where the orb was, though it’s clear he’s only a hologram. “Father.” Allura tears up as she sees him and heads towards him. “Father, it is so good to see you.” she tells the towering hologram.

“Allura, my only child, how I've missed your face.” he greets her in return.

Allura looks away from her father in shame and uncertainty of how he would react. “I'm so frightened. A Galra ship is set to attack, and I don't know what to do.” she kneels down at the platform of her father’s projection. “Please, Father, I need your help.”

“I would do anything to take this burden from you.” he tells her sadly.

Allura leans against the platform. “I don't know if we should run to preserve what we have or stay and risk everything. I want to fight, but the paladins of old are gone.” finally she looks back up at him. “I know what you would do.”

“I scattered the Lions of Voltron to keep them out of Zarkon's hands.” he reminds her. “You urged me to keep them and fight, but, for the greater good of protecting the universe, I chose to hide them.”

Allura looks down again. “I think I understand.”

“No, daughter, you were right.” Allura looks up at her father in shock. “I made a terrible mistake, one that cost the universe countless lives. Forming Voltron is the only way to stop Zarkon. You must be willing to sacrifice everything to assemble the lions and correct my error.”

* * *

 

Allura stands strongly in the doorway, wearing a white suit with pink accents and black under colors. Small accents of the same blue in the castle form  **V** s on her shoulders. “You five paladins were brought here for a reason. The Voltron Lions are meant to be piloted by you and you alone.” the five all stare at her, entrapped by the leadership she so bravely possesses. “We must fight and keep fighting until we defeat Zarkon. It is our destiny.” she tells the resolutely, despite some shocked looks. “Voltron is the universe's only hope. We are the universe's only hope.”

“We're with you, Princess.” Shiro confirms.

* * *

 

Five tubes light up, showing color-coded armor for all of them.

“Your suits of armor.” Allura tells them.

Shiro looks over the black armor.

“Cool!” Lance muses.

“Outstanding.” Keith murmurs.

“Nice.” Shiro approves.  **_(OMG I didn’t know this was Shiro! I thought this was like Lance or maybe- very maybe- Keith! BUT it’s not! This is too good. I’m laughing.)_ **

“Oh, neat!” Pidge cheers.

“Hmm.” Hunk hums, leaning forward to further inspect his suit, holding his hands at the waist size. “Mmm.” he looks at the size difference and looks deadpanned at the suit. “Hmm.”  **_(It stretches, but Hunk the suit did nothing wrong, don’t blame the suit for the bad pun. Blame either the writers or Allura.)_ **

“Princess, are you sure about this?” Coran questions, tugging on his mustache. “They aren't exactly the best and brightest the universe has to offer.” 

“No, but they're all we've got.” Allura says strongly.

“Boys, it's time to suit up!” Shiro calls out with a smile.  **_(OMFG Shiro! STOP! You’re supposed to be the responsible one here! Stop acting like a six-year-old! I mean honestly, I’d be seriously nervous with a leader like him because I know six years olds, one their scary and two, bad idea to have them lead anything.)_ **

Lance slides on his gauntlet, checking his movement. Pidge fastens their belt. Keith’s chest plate  clicks into place. Shiro slides his helmet on. All five stand proudly in their armor, looking towards Allura.

The Princess brings her hand to the table surface and the bright blue layer disappears to show four C shaped pieces, matching Keith, Lance, Pidge, and Hunk’s uniform colors. “The Bayard is the traditional weapon of the Paladins of Voltron.” she says as the rise up from the table. “It takes a distinct shape for each Paladin.” the bayards move towards their Paladins, and Hunk hesitantly reaches out to grab his.

The moment the yellow Bayard touches Hunk’s hand it changes shape, which Hunk yells out in shock, then grunts at the machine gun take its place. 

Keith reaches out, and a sword forms instantly, he gives a small hum of approval until he sees his other wrist blink, a shield forming.

Lance’s turns into an almost rifle-like gun. He chuckles, then looks down the sight. “Whoo!”

Pidge’s covers their knuckles and gains an almost blade-like shape on top that glows green. They run through some strikes, smiling as they come to a stop.

“Aw, you got a cute little Bayard.” Lance teases, Pidge strikes instantly hitting the Cuban in the stomach and shocking him with electricity. Lance screams in pain and falls to the ground.

“Yeah, it is pretty cute.”  Pidge muses, looking up as they see Allura approach Shiro.

“Shiro, I'm afraid your Bayard was lost with its paladin.” Allura tells the eldest.

He gives a small smile. “I guess I'll just have to make do.”

* * *

 

In the observation room, computer design of Sendak’s ship is in front of the large bay windows. Showing off the ship’s true shape and firing capacity. “You'll need to retrieve the Red Lion from Sendak's ship.” Allura informs.

“That's a pretty big ship.” Keith points out. “How are we gonna know where the Red Lion is?”

“It's not a matter of ‘we’. It's a matter of ‘you’.” the green paladin tells the raven.

“Pidge is right.” Hunk agrees emphatically. “Once we get you in, you'll be able to feel its presence and track it down.”

Lance chuckles slightly. “Yeah. You know how you felt that crazy energy while we were in the desert?” he asks, crossing his arms and leaning back as his taunt shows through in his tone.

“Yeah.” Keith says with a small glare and a tinge of annoyance in his voice. “You made fun of me for that.”

“And I'm proud of that,” Lance sighs with a small smile. “but turns out it's exactly like that mumbo-jumbo.”

“Keith, remember, the Red Lion is extremely temperamental. You'll have to  **earn** its respect.” Allura reminds the teen.  **_(I’m not sure if you’re trying to be helpful here Allura, because if you are, it’s not working.)_ **

Keith frowns, but as Shiro places his right hand on Keith’s shoulder he looks up curiously.

“All right. Here's our plan of attack.”

* * *

 

**_(I’m trying a different format for this, tell me if it’s okay or if it needs to change. This is kinda my beta test for something like this- when I did it in YJ {Bereft} it was all already flashback and there were more actions than words, but since this is outlying the plan with Shiro as the narrator I knew I needed a different format. Opinions, give them to me, please.)_ **

The Blue and Yellow Lions fly through space together,

_ The Galra Empire knows about the Blue and Yellow Lion,  _

both of them heading towards the Galra ship.

_ but they don't know we have the Green Lion, too.  _

The Green Lion circles around the curve of Arus, heading for the back on the Glara ship.

_ Hunk, Lance, you'll act as a decoy by pretending to give yourselves up. _

Sendak stands on the helm of his ship. The tracking systems pick up movement, and as it zooms in he can see the Blue and Yellow Lions.

Lance’s face appears on the screen beside his Lion. “Attention, Galra ship. Do not fire. We're surrendering our lions.” 

Lance cuts the open communication line as he and Hunk slowly approach the gates of the ship. “Hope this works.” the Blue Paladin murmurs. Meanwhile, Hunk bites his lower lip nervously.

* * *

 

_ While Sendak is distracted, Keith, Pidge, and I will sneak onto the ship in the Green Lion. _

The Green Lion lands on the bottom of the ship, uninterrupted and completely unnoticed.

_ Keith and I will find the Red Lion while Pidge guards our exit. _

Pidge uses their bayard to cut a hole in the bottom of the ship, which leads right into an airway. Shiro heads in first, Pidge and Keith watch for a moment before following him in.

_ Hunk, Lance, find some way to take down that ion canon. _

The doors that the two Paladins stopped in front of slowly open and Lance is the only one to speak up. “Pidge, what's your ETA?” 

Pidge lands in a crouch and their helmet changes to stop covering their mouth as they enter a breathable atmosphere. “We're in.” Shiro already stands beside them while Keith slowly descends with the help of his own jetpack.

“Activate tractor beam.” Sendak commands.

A purple light shines from the open doors, getting brighter with every moment.

“What's that thing?” Hunk demands worriedly.

“I think that's our signal to get out of here!” Lance shouts. Both of them split just in time to avoid being caught by the tractor beam. 

The two Lions move extremely fast and from a safe distance the Blue Lion watches as the purple beam cuts straight through the empty space before it.

“They lied to us.” Sendak snarls, seeming slightly taken aback for a moment before he gives his commands. “Launch fighters!”  **_(Now it took me a few moments- when I was writing this- to figure out why, though it was something I had definitely picked up on the first time I watched it, but if the Galra has been unmatched in power for 10,000 years it would make sense that this generation of Generals and soldiers are completely unprepared to handle resistance other than just a few heretics here and there.)_ **

“Hunk, you dismantle the ion canon while I take these jerks on a space ride!” Lance tells his teammate, smirking by the end of his statement.

“Ten-four!” the Yellow Paladin replies with a smile, taking off with a burst of speed. Evading fighters while Lance seems to hardly miss a shot.

* * *

 

Keith peaks around a corner inside the Galra ship before turning it. Shiro glances in both directions before he follows Keith down the hall. Pidge crouches low, their own Bayard raised in defense.

Shiro looks down the hall, blinking rapidly as the hall seems to stretch, then flashes come over in his memory.

_A Galra Sentinel enters a crowded dark room, armed with a large gun, as the only door in the room rises up. Everyone in the room is against the opposite wall._ _  
__A light so bright it looks barely tinged purple is above Shiro, his vision tunneled for a moment, but as it widens the image only gets worse. Instead of three Sentinels, there are seven surrounding him._ _  
___Zarkon glares with yellow pupils and purple sclera.

Shiro barely manages a groan as he pants heavily.

Keith looks back at the man worriedly, his sword hanging limply by his side. While Pidge steps up from their crouch to slowly step towards the clearly shaken Black Paladin.

“I've been here before.” Shiro mumbles, stunned by his own realization. “After I was taken by the Galra cruiser off Kerberos, they brought us here.” 

Pidge gapes for a moment before speaking up. “So, that means your other crew-members, they might be held captive here. We-we've got to rescue them.”

Shiro clenches his teeth, looking away from the Green Paladin. “Pidge, we don't have time.” turning resolutely towards them. “We have to get the Red Lion and get back to Arus.” 

“But we can't just leave prisoners here!” Pidge objects loudly.

“Look, no one understands that more than me, but, in war, we have to make hard choices.” he mumbles, but still looks resolute. “Now, let's get moving.”

Pidge looks thoughtful for a moment before they shout out “No!” so loudly that both Shiro and Keith turn back instantly. “Commander Holt is my father.” they admit looking down, before glaring heavily at Shiro. “He and my brother were the ones on the Kerberos Mission with you.”

Shiro’s eyes go wide, before his brows draw together slightly. “Commander Holt is your father?”  **_(I’ll admit, with what I had seen of the pic and I had only just now realized that the boy in the pic wasn’t Pidge and that the other person was distinctly female in presentation I figured Shiro was aware that there were two Holt kids, but he was unaware that there were now two Holt boys. Long story short my brain thought Pidge was FtM.)_ **

“Yes. I've been searching everywhere for him and my brother. And I'm not going to give up looking when I'm this close.” Pidge all-but snarls as they turn away. “I won't!”

“I'm coming with you.” is the mellow reply that catches in the silence.

“What?” Keith asks, his eyebrows raising.

“I remember where the prisoners are held.” Shiro tells Pidge before turning to look over his shoulder. “Keith, you go find the Red Lion.”

“By myself?” the Red Paladin asks.

“Minor change of plans. You'll be fine.” Shiro turns fully towards Keith and places his right hand on Keith's shoulder. “Just remember, patience yields focus. So-” All three catch the sound of a door opening, and light coming down the hall they just came from. “Run!” he hisses, him and Pidge heading to the right while Keith heads off to the left.  **_(Which watching this WAY slower and WAY more times than is healthy I noticed that Keith is actually heading in the opposite direction than he and Shiro had been planning on heading.)_ **

Keith runs down the halls of Alien ship, then sliding to a stop and looking both left and right. “Great.” he mumbles sarcastically at the fork. “Now, which way?” he looks at the Galra emblem on the wall above his head for a long moment, narrowing his eyes. The sound of approaching footsteps spur him into action and he takes off to the right.

* * *

 

Hunk grunts as he pushes his controls forward, trying to ram the Ion canon. A purple shield shows itself as the lion makes contact, as Hunk rights the lion he makes a spacious arc around the death gun. “What the quiznak?” as moves the Yellow Lion can he see what he ran into before it fades. “What is that? A force field?”

* * *

 

“Particle barrier up!” Allura commands. 

The blue barrier surrounds the Castle of Lions for a moment before fading out.

Coran scrunches his nose. “Is that what's supposed to happen?” he asks the Princess even though has a sneaking suspicion on the answer.

A small hatch on the main console is opened to let Allura and Coran look inside. The ginger sees the problem immediately. “All the barrier crystals are out of alignment.”

Allura nudges Coran to the side to get a better look. “We have to fix it immediately.” then fully facing her advisor. “Without the particle barrier, we'll be defenseless.”

“We're both too big.” Coran points out the obvious. “What can we do?”

The mice run past the two of them into the hole in the panel 

“The mice!” Allura realizes.

Coran and Allura both lean over to see inside once more. “How do they know how to do this?” Coran questions, rhetorical.

“I can hear them talking to me. I think our minds are connected.” Allura says in astonishment as she and Coran watch the mice run around. “It must be from sharing the sleep pod for 10,000 years.” she says resolutely as the mice realign the out of place crystal.

The console powers on, and the particle barrier rises and remains strong. The mice look down at it, squeaking in cheer.

“Thank you, friends.” Allura tells them.

Coran grunts as he puts two fingers on his temples and strains harshly.

“Coran, what are you doing?” Allura asks while giving her advisor an annoyed look out of the corner of her eye.

“I'm trying to get them to make me a sandwich.” Coran bites out as he continues to try and communicate with the mice.

* * *

 

Keith makes a harsh right, looking across the halls to ensure he’s not going to get caught before running again, groaning at each forked turn he’s forced to make. He comes to a stop and groans loudly as he finds himself back where he started. “You've got to be kidding me!” he gripes, putting his hands on his knees. He breathes heavier and brings it back to an easier pace as he stands up straight and tilts his head up. “Patience yields focus.” he repeats, closing his eyes. Able to sense the Red Lion, but not knowing how to get to it. A path is traced out in his mind from the Lion to him. “Gotcha.” he says, looking over his shoulder before taking off.

* * *

 

Pidge and Shiro run down a hall that is green on one side and purple on the other. Though both are forced to stop as they come to a fork and a silver and red drone hovers in front of them. “Huh?” Pidge mumbles, before shooting a bolt at it.

“That thing saw us. We should get out of here.” Shiro tells the teen as they approach the fallen bot.

“Wait. I think this might come in handy.” Pidge tells him as they open up the siding. 

A wire reconnected. “Now, I'll just reset the controls…” the drone lights up blue this time. “and it's working for us.” Pidge says with a smile as Shiro double checks for guards. “I'm going to call you  _ Rover _ . Follow me!” they tell the drone and the Black Paladin leads the way.

The two stop in front of a cell door, Shiro checks for any built-in handles, while Pidge turns to Rover. “Open up.” they command, and the bot lines itself up and completes the necessary scanning to open the door.

“Excellent, Pidge.” Shiro approves.

Inside the cell all of the prisoners gasp as the door slides up.

“Dad?” Pidge calls as they duck under the door, but there’s no human among them.

“Don't be afraid. We're here to help you escape.” Shiro tells the prisoners so Pidge can have a moment to get themself back in check despite the blow they just received.

“It's you…” one mumbles. “It's you, the Champion.” a pale alien with a feature coming off it’s forehead says strongly, looking to the other prisoners. “If anyone can get us out of here, he can.”

Shiro frowns, confused. “Wh-what did you call me?”

Pidge sees Rover approaching the door of the cell. “We don't have much time.” they say lowly. “Let's get to the escape pods.” they take off following Rover.

“Let's go.” Shiro waves them on as they stand still for a moment. “Come on!” he holds up the end of the line.

* * *

 

Lance circles around the Galra ship, dodging shots. “Whoa-ho-ho! Yeah, buddy! This is way more fun without Hunk's barfing!”

The Yellow Lion throws itself at  the force field, which causes Hunk to groan sickly from within when the Lion bounces off.

* * *

 

The Red Lion is in a force field of its own, in the lower bay of the cruiser. “Bingo.” Keith says with a smile as he places his hand on the field. Unlike with Lance and the Blue Lion on Earth, nothing happens. “Let's get out of here. Open up.” Keith’s eyes widen as he realizes something’s wrong. “It's me. Keith. Your buddy.” he tries, but nothing happens. “It's me! Keith~, your-” he cuts himself off before calling out. “I am your paladin!” he knocks on the force field just as galra soldiers start shooting at him. He uses his own shield to block the shots as he turns back to the Lion. “I'm bonding with you!” finally he loses his cool. “Hey! Come on! We're connected!” he yells at the Lion. 

Then pulls out his Bayard  **_(forgot what this was called for like five minutes. Oops.)_ ** and activates it as he charges at the soldiers. “You're not getting this lion!” he tells the soldiers as he jams one of their guns with his shield and knocks it off balance with a hit from his sword. A second charges at him and he cuts it off at the knees with ease.

Another flurry of shots knock him back with a groan and destroy his shield. As the three soldiers close in on him he looks at the console to his left and activates the respirator in his helmet just as he stands up and slams on the button that opens the bay doors.

The Glara soldiers all get sucked out instantly, and Keith strains to hang onto the console. Looking up at the unmoving Red Lion as a piece of debris hits his right hand and knocks his grip loose. Just as he reaches out to hit the button to close the doors a denser piece of debris hits him solidly in the chest and knocks into space.

As he floats, Keith’s breathing is not only erratic but heavy, clearly panicking. His eyes go wide as the Red Lion flies out of the Galra ship and opens its mouth as it approaches him.

Keith smirks as he sits in the pilot’s chair that slides into the control center of the Lion. “Good kitty.” he praises, seeing the monitors light up as he grabs the controls. “Let's roll.”

* * *

 

Shiro and Pidge stand off to the sides of an open escape ship. “Hurry!” Pidge calls out, encouraging the prisoners.

Drones appears, catching the Paladins’ attention. “Halt!”

Pidge gasps as they look over their shoulder to see four drones. Shiro running up to stand slightly in front of Pidge’s left side.

As Shiro stands in a fighting stance with his right fist clenches, through the armor there’s a slight purple glow. As the glow brightens Shiro cries out in pain, though he can hear Pidge calling his name it’s foggy to him. “Shiro, what's wrong?” he hears Pidge try again, as well as the approaching footsteps of the drones. 

His hand snaps to a knife hand, every part of his hand unmoving, which finally gets Shiro out of the fog and able to hear again. Looking up and glaring at the drones before he springs into a charge at the drones, blocking their shots with his glowing hand and knocking the lead drone to the side with flick of his wrist. Uppercutting the second drone to pieces and knife hand arc takes out two more. Glaring at the final one, as his hand leaves light streaks for Pidge to watch, enthralled, he turns into a harsh kidney jab that leaves a hole in the final drone.

Pidge blinks in shock, before looking to the escape ship, which now has all the prisoners on it. “Thank you, Shiro.” the one who called him Champion says as the doors close and the ship takes off.

Shiro stops short beside Pidge. “Wait! How do you-?” 

Pidge nudges Shiro with a fist. “Shiro, that was amazing! Where did you learn to fight with that?”

Shiro looks down as he raises his palm flat and bends his elbow. Then maneuvers the fingers. “No idea.”

* * *

 

The Yellow Lion fires a laser from its mouth at the Force Field, which as the laser continues, the shield begins to crack. “Come on, just break, you stupid thing!” Hunk shouts at it. “Score one for Hunk!” he cheers as it pops and takes off at full speed at the Ion canon, denting it horribly. Inspecting his work as he lands on top of the Galra ship. Which lets him see the Green and the Red Lions take off from the Galra ship and head towards Arus. 

“You guys made it!” Hunk says brightly as he sees Lance join the two of them.

“Kitty Rose has left the stage!” Pidge says brightly over the comms.

“Let's get the heck out of here.” Lance says with a smile.

The Yellow Lion takes off after the other three Lions. “I hope I stopped that canon. I could barely make a dent in it.”

* * *

 

“They stole the Red Lion!” one of the Galra informs Sendak from the control station.

“After them!” Sendak snarls. “Either we get those lions or we blow this whole planet to cosmic dust! Fire the ion canon!”

The soldier calls over his shoulder the bad news. “Sir, the ion canon has been damaged.”

“Then, send the drones to fix it!” Sendak shouts as the Galra ship begins to head towards Arus.

* * *

 

Inside the Castle of Lions, the four found Lions sit before a gigantic door, the only Paladin there is Shiro. 

The Green lights up behind him. The Red quickly follows. The Yellow does as well. The Blue is the last of the set to light up.

Allura watches the readout on a small projection screen, her fingers threaded and holding her breath to see the results.

The doors open to the Black Lion, but that’s not the hardest part of this endeavor.

Their worries were all for naught as Black roars in Shiro’s presence. The other four joining in.

Allura breathes out a sigh of relief as Coran cheers behind her. Their celebration seems to be a little too early as the alarms start going off, though both of them are confused.

“Oh, quiznak!” Coran curses.

“Sendak is entering the Arusian atmosphere.” Allura informs the Paladins. “We need Voltron now!”

Shiro’s chair moves forward in his lion, the controls glowing a soft purple as he reaches out for the controls, everything brightens up as his hands connect.

Black’s eyes glow in the darkness and then it roars even louder before taking off directly upwards. The other four lions are quick to follow Shiro through.

The five fly out of the top of the center spier of the Castle. Blue lands first, then Red, Black, Green, and Yellow. They stand strong, but they’re still inside the shield.

Glara fighters attack the barrier, but they can’t penetrate through it.

* * *

 

“The ion canon is back online!” a male voice informs Sendak.

“Fire!” Sendak commands.

* * *

 

The Ion canon charges up, before unleashing a massive blast at the Castle, when it makes contact with the shield it surrounds it in a massive fireball as the sonic boom catches up and rips apart the first layer of ground around the Castle.  **_(I was about to say earth, but I think_ ** **technically** **_that’d be incorrect. Thoughts?)_ **

Allura and Coran fight to stay standing inside the Castle control room, while the Paladins cringe at the power, even from inside their Lions.

Yellow pulls up a screen for Hunk, showing the Ion canon. “Man, those Galra guys repair things fast.”

* * *

 

Coran is getting readings from the Castle as well. “The barrier gets weaker with every blast. Once that shield goes down, the castle will be defenseless.”

Allura speaks directly to the Paladins from her spot in the control room. “I can give you cover with the castle defenses for a while, but you have to form Voltron now or we'll all be destroyed!”

* * *

 

“Jeez, no pressure.” Hunk huffs.

The Galra Battleship fires another blast at the Castle. As the fireball fades, electricity crackles on the outside of the barrier.

* * *

 

Shiro clenches his hands tightly around the controls to the Black Lion, once it stops he takes command. “Listen up, Team Voltron! The only way to succeed is to give it all you've got! This looks bad, but we can do this! Are you with me?”

All four of the other paladins nod in resolute agreement.

Suddenly Hunk’s eyes go wide. “I'm nodding. Is everyone else nodding?” he asks.

“Yes.” Lance huffs, Keith groans, and Pidge gripes.

* * *

 

“Let's do this!” Shiro commands as the Black Lion takes off running. The others are quick to follow in formation.

“Uh, how?” Lance asks as they pass through the barrier.

“Good question. Does anyone have any ideas on how to form Voltron?” Keith  **_(Not Shiro CC, though I did laugh at that one)_ ** asks the others.

“I don't see a ‘ **combine into giant robot** ’ button anywhere on my dashboard.” Hunk supplies as Galra fighters start shooting at them and they reach the end of the bridge to the castle.

The Castle continues to take shots and destroy fighters as the Paladins draw the fighters away.

“This is insane!” Pidge gripes, dodging shots. “Can't they just cease-fire for one minute so we can figure this out?” Pidge stops the green lion short and grabs one of the Galra fighters straight in the Green Lion’s mouth, crushing the wing “Is that too much to ask?” then taking the already captured fighter throws it at the other one that was following them specifically.

Blue and Red run beside each other, though Keith turns and takes out one of the fighters with a shot from Red’s tail, while the Castle takes out the other. 

“We've got to do something.” Keith points out with urgency.

The Yellow Lion slams into the Red Lion as Hunk yells “Combine!”

Given the size difference, it’s not surprising that Keith is the one most thrown into a tumble, as he groans inside his cockpit. “Hey!” he snaps at Hunk.

“Okay, that didn't work.” Hunk sighs, but both have to start moving again as fighters continue to shoot at them.

Allura uses the castle to display a screen inside the Lions. “Quickly, Paladins! Our energy levels are getting low!” she groans as the Castle is nearly shaken off its foundation by another blast.

“Maybe if we fly in formation, we'll just combine.” Shiro offers as the video feed cuts. “Take off on my cue.” the five are readily approaching a canyon. “One, two, three, Voltron!” all five Lions take off.

“Here we go!” Keith says.

“Come on, come on!” Lance grumbles.

All the Paladins are grunting with effort. 

“Nothing's happening.” Shiro realizes with worry, his Lion starting to glow red from the windows. 

“Hey, wait, wait, wait! I feel something!” Lance cuts in.

“I do, too.” Hunk agrees quickly. “I feel it. It's like we're all being pulled in the same direction!”

Shiro’s eyes widen as he realizes why. “Uh, guys, I think I know why. Look up.”

“What the cheese?” Lance questions as all five are now caught in Sendak’s tractor beam.

“Sendak's ship is sucking us in like a black hole!” Pidge informs.

* * *

 

“Send a report to Emperor Zarkon: "The day is ours."” Sendak says with full confidence.

His ship takes another shot at the Castle of Lions, this time the shield pops with the fireball. From inside the Castle, both Allura and Coran are knocked off their feet by the force of the blast.

* * *

 

“Oh, no!”Shiro gasps, realizing that the barrier has dropped.

“I don't care what you say, Shiro. I'm panicking now!” Hunk blubbers then starts screaming

“It can't end here!” Pidge denies.

“This is it!” Lance cries out.

“It's been an honor flying with you boys.” is all Keith says.

“Oh, no!” Hunk cries.

* * *

 

Sendak smirks, smugly at the ease he had in capturing the Voltron Lions.

Allura can do nothing as she stands back on her feet inside the Castle.

* * *

 

“No! We can do this.” Keith and Lance both look towards Shiro’s Lion. “We have to believe in ourselves.” Pidge and Hunk also turn towards the Black Lion. “We can't give up. We are the universe's only hope. Everyone is relying on us.” All four say nothing, but harden their looks in agreement. “We can't fail! We won't fail! If we work together, we'll win together!”

“Yeah!” the other four shout.

All five Lions’ eyes glow and they roar before glowing in their color. They break through the tractor beam with a blinding white light as they shoot off into five different directions.

* * *

 

**_(I will do this for this transformation sequence exactly once, and I’m sorry but I was one of the fans that got sick of it, so I’m going to point out where I’d let it happen, because yes I am that picky. Lol, you know how Netflix has a ‘Skip Intro’ button, I’d give VLD a ‘Skip Transformation’ button. And before you ask, yes it is slightly different than what actually happens in Ep1, because it was only rewatching it for this that I realized that it was different than how I knew I remembered it, turns out it's slightly different so I snagged the one from Ep11 instead.)_ **

The Black Lion flies in the center and the furthest forward, as it roars its front legs tuck into the mechanisms as its back legs are now locked in position by a rapidly locking bar.

The Green and Red Lions weave around each other as their tails disappear, the Lion’s legs tuck into the bodies and as the Red Lion connects to the open sockets of the Black Lion’s front legs it goes about ⅔ of the way in before a hydraulic claw grabs the end and pulls it flush to the inside of the Black Lion’s connector. The Lion’s head is locked in place as it almost seems to get larger.

While Green’s connector goes straight through and the Black Lion components come at it from the side, top, and front to hold it in place, and as it too almost seems to get larger and roar.

Blue and Yellow undergo a similar process, but the heads turn at a solid 90-degree angle to form the foot, and the back opens to allow the Black Lion’s rear legs in.

Inside the Lion their locked into place by a series of opposing directional closing doors.

The Black Lion’s bottom jaw drops open and the ears open to form an almost crown as the sheet that was hiding Voltron’s human face slides away and Voltron’s eyes glow bright yellow.

* * *

 

The Ion Canon charges up for a final shot at the Castle, but the shot goes between the spiers and takes out a mountain on the other side of the lake.

The Castle is rattle by the boom, but Allura and Coran get a perfect visual from an enhanced picture of Sendak’s ship. From the smoke of the impact with Sendak’s ship stands a looming figure, with its right hand having moved the Ion Canon’s aim. 

Sendak moves away as he gasps out “Voltron!”

“I can't believe it!” Keith says with a smile. 

“We formed Voltron!” Pidge cheers.

“I'm a leg!” Hunk cries out.

“How are we doing this?” Lance asks. 

“I don't know,” admits with a slight laugh. “but let's get that canon!” moving his control arms.

Voltron grabs the Ion Canon with both hands and rips it straight from the ship. Tossing it the planet below. Then punching a hole straight through the hull with the red lion, then firing the laser inside the ship, which passes through all the levels, and blows up the front third of the ship.

Sendak groans as the ship quakes.

Voltron rises up from the exploded area crashing through the hull with its entire body. Using the Green Lion to fire another laser down the length of the ship.

Seeing the destruction on the monitors Sendak and his commanding officer leave the bridge in a rush as Voltron rises from the fire.

Voltron rises even higher, before looping back around as all the Paladins yell as they punch a hole straight through the engines of the ship. The engines explode one after another, taking out the entire ship in series of smaller explosions before going off in as Voltron lands on the world below.

* * *

 

Allura and Coran run out of the Castle as all the Paladins stay by the front door, Lance, Pidge, and Shiro all take their helmets off, while Hunk sits down tiredly. As if encouraging the only one with his guard still up, Shiro pats Keith on the back, not too gently by how much it knocked him off balance.

“Good work, Paladins!” Allura congratulates them.

“Thanks, pretty lady.” Lance says with a smile.

“We did it.” Shiro agrees.

Keith finally pulls his helmet off. “Heck yeah, we did.” he agrees, sharing a smile to Shiro.

“How did we do it?” Shiro asks

“I was just, like, screaming the whole time.” Hunk jokes as he pulls his own helmet off as he stands back up. “Maybe that did it.”

Pidge puts their glasses back on, looking down with a contemplative look, but their eyes jolt back up when Shiro puts his hand on their shoulder. “We're not going to stop searching until we find your brother and father.” Shiro promises. “Wherever they are, I know they'd be proud of you.” Pidge gives a lopsided smile, that comment meaning a lot more than they let on.

“We won the battle, but the war has only just begun. I'm afraid Zarkon will not stop until he gets these lions.” Allura says with a note of apology towards them.

“Good thing you paladins know what you're doing, because you're going to have to form Voltron again and again.” Coran says with an easy smile.

“Totally.” Hunk says, then processes what Coran just said, both he and Lance lean forward in disbelief. “Wait, what?”

“We barely survived forming Voltron this one time.” Lance groans.

“And you only had to fight one ship. Wait until you have to fight a whole fleet of them!” Coran says a little too brightly, but he gives off another easy smile as he returns to his spot beside Allura. “It's not going to be easy being the Defenders of the Universe.” he says, pulling at his mustache.

Pidge and Hunk’s eyes go wide, then Lance and Keith’s, Shiro’s surprise fades as he smiles. “Defenders of the Universe, huh?” he and all the other Paladins turn towards their Lions. “That's got a nice ring to it.”


	4. Episode 2: Some Assembly Required

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did this stream of consciousness style so tell me if I missed something

Within the Castle of Lions, Hunk lies snoring in his bed. The alarm starts blaring, startling him out of bed. Hunk lets out a small scream as he falls and crashes onto his stomach. He quickly gets to his feet, but trips over his blanket and falls in the now open doorway.

* * *

 

Shiro hears the alarm and pauses in his pushups. “Everybody up! Zarkon's attacking!” he hears Allura say, heading out of his quarters and down the hall, already dressed in his Paladin Uniform.

* * *

 

Wearing a sleeping mask and headphones Lance sleeps through the alarm, and Allura’s shouting over the comms.

* * *

 

Keith hears Allura shout as he looks over a knife. “The Castle's about to be destroyed!” he jumps out of bed, grabbing his red jacket off the wall and putting his knife in his sheath on the back of his belt before running out the door.

* * *

 

Pidge jolts awake, their laptop falling out of their lap, as they blearily realize they fell asleep sitting against the Healing Pods. “Go, go, go! We need Voltron now!” Pidge stands up and runs out of the room, Rover following close behind.

* * *

 

Allura continues to shout into the comms. “Hurry! We can't survive much longer!”

Her and Coran stand calmly in the control room. “You've got to sell it a little bit more.” Coran tells her, then clears his throat as he turns to the microphone himself. “Oh, no! Allura is dead!” Allura jolts at Coran’s sudden shouting. “Aw, it's horrible! Her head fell off!” he mimes a cut at his own neck even though she’s the only one that can see him. “Wait! What?” he falls to his knees. “Her severed head is trying to speak to me! What is it, Allura's head? What are your final words?”

“Coran.” Allura says tensely.

“Oh, yes, Princess, I'm listening.” Coran continues to play the charade.

Allura slumps as the lights on the dome go out. “It's over.”

“Oh, I know! If only Voltron had been formed.” Coran continues to wail dramatically.

Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, and Keith all stand in the middle of the command center. 

“Oh! Time!” Coran jumps to standing as he throws the device in his hand over his shoulder.

Shiro sighs as he holds his helmet under his arm. “I guess this isn't an actual attack.”

Pidge yawns as they rub their eyes under their glasses.

“And it's a good thing it wasn't because it took you, Coran?” Allura questions tersely.

“Seventy-five degrees.” Coran says and Allura looks at him worriedly, and then realization dawn on him. “Oh, sorry. No, this is a meat thermometer.”  **_(I have a question because this is clearly in Fahrenheit and I have to ask, why?)_ **

Allura brushes off as she heads towards the Paladins. “However long it was, it was too long. You must always be ready to do battle with Zarkon.” Keith looks bored, Pidge continues to rub their eye, Shiro stands tall, and Hunk slouches over, clearly tired. “Look at you! Only Shiro is in uniform. Keith, Pidge, Hunk, where are your bayards? And where is Lance?”

Wearing a blue robe and blue lion slippers Lance walks in, yawning as he pauses at the doorway. “Good morning, everybody. What's going on?” Lance’s face shines and he nearly sparkles with a glass in his hand, completely relaxed.

“Coran and I have been up for hours getting the Castle back in order. We had to run a test on the alarms, and we decided to test you as well. Guess which one failed.” Allura gives all of them a scathing look.

“Hey!” Hunk defends, but yawns before he continues. “You got to sleep for 10,000 years, man. Monday night, I was on Earth.” he starts listing off the weirdness on his fingers. “Now, I've flown through space, fought some evil alien named Zarkon, eaten goo in some weird castle. That's a lot to process in…” he realizes he lost track of what day it is. “uh I don't know. What day is today?”

Coran pops in with the useful knowledge. “It's the third quintant of the Spicolian movement. Hump day!” but it means nothing because Hunk doesn’t understand any of the words he just said.

He gives both aliens a deadpanned look. “It's a lot to process.”

“You must understand the stakes of our mission.” Allura tries, pulling up a holographic keyboard and pulling up the star map. “Over the last 10,000 years, the Castle picked up distress beacons from the following locations.” all seven of them watch as the map goes from blue to orange. “So, we have to assume that Zarkon has conquered almost the entire known universe.” she pulls the map to the side, where the orange has started to fade and blue is still mostly dominated. “Earth is here. An attack on your planet is inevitable.”

“Oh, no.” is the only thing Hunk can murmur as it sinks in.

“Exactly. Our mission is to free all those planets.” the star map fades away. “Coran and I are getting the Castle ready to leave Arus. During that time, you have to learn to form Voltron, so we can begin fighting Zarkon.”

“The Princess is right. Let's get to our lions and start training.” Shiro says.

Pidge looks up and back at Shiro worriedly. “Wait. But I want to talk to the prisoners we rescued from the Galra ship.”

“Negative, Number Five. I have you ranked by height, okay?” he acts as the measuring stick for Pidge, showing the others what he means before standing back up. “The prisoners need to remain in the cryo-replenishers until tomorrow.”

“That's right. Now, get to your lions.” Allura commands.

Keith, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge all step into elevators, while Shiro moves forward and a section of the floor drops down. Shiro is met with an open doorway and a handle of a zipline that he jumps to grab on to.

Keith, Lance, and Pidge, now in their Armor, go down theirs. While Hunk’s slows down and stops in the middle of the tunnel.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's going on? What's going?” he tries to nudge it forward but ends up falling to the floor and the bar continues moving. “Aw, come on.” he groans, standing up and sliding down the slope. “You've got to be kidding me.”

At the end of the Zipline, Keith, Lance, Shiro, and Pidge drop into a narrower tunnel and drops them into the seat of their Transport Pods  **_(thank you Descriptive Audio (DA), I never actually knew what these were called. Also is this how all descriptive audio works because it is not what I was expecting.)_ ** which they use two sticks to control and lead down a hallway to a platform that rises up on a track in a massive chamber.

* * *

 

Hunk slides down the tunnel above his Transport Pod, sticking his foot down first to try and gauge his landing.  **_(also DA, this isn’t Lance)_ ** “Whoa!” Hunk yelps as he falls to the floor after his Pod leaves without him.

* * *

 

On the bridge outside the Castle, the other four Lions wait.

“Should someone go in after him?” Lance hesitantly asks the others.

The Yellow Lion flies around the middle spier. “Hi, guys. Sorry, everybody.” the Yellow Lion lands and falls into line next to the Green Lion as they turn away from the Castle. “Seriously, though, can't they park these things, like, a  **little** closer to the bridge?”

Shiro takes his role as leader. “All right, guys. Let's just fly in tight formation until we're totally in sync.”

Allura pops up on a screen inside the cockpits of the Lions. “Feel the bond with your lions and your fellow pilots until five become one unit and you form Voltron!”

“Yeah!” they all cheer as they take off.  **_(The CC says all but I’m not sure I can actually hear Shiro, but Shiro 6 and so I’m guessing he probably did it.)_ **

The five Lions fly over the surface of Arus. “Yeah!”

They continue to fly in a tight formation. “Yeah!”

They slow down their flight and all weakly cheer “Yay.”

“Whoo.” Hunk is alone in this one as they continue to fly over the mountainous area in front of the Castle. “Am I the only one who's still pretending to be excited?”

Shiro sighs. “Clearly, this isn't working. Let's set down for a little bit.”

“Maybe we should be building Voltron from the ground up.” Keith offers.

“What do you mean?” Shiro asks.

“I mean, let's try  **literally** building Voltron, like, stacking on top of each other.” Keith explains.

“Like a cheerleader pyramid?” Lance taunts with a smirk.

“You got a better idea?” Keith asks seriously, which is enough to take the wind out of Lance’s sails. 

“It's worth a try.” Shiro admits.

* * *

 

On the ground, the Red Lion is on the backs of the Green and Blue Lions, with the Black Lion having its front legs on the Red Lion and its back legs on the Green and Blue Lions. Finally, the Yellow Lion is atop the Black Lion.

“Hunk, what are you doing?” Shiro asks.

“What do you mean?” Hunk questions curiously.

“You're supposed to be the leg over there.” Shiro tells him

“What? No. No, no, no.” Hunk denies. “I'm pretty sure that when we did it last time, I was the head. Right?”

“You yelled, "I'm a leg!".” Lance reminds him.

“Yeah, I was yelling a lot of things.” Hunk defends.

“Shiro's the head.” Keith says strongly.

“All the time?” Hunk asks sadly.

Shiro deflates a little. “Let's just try it my way for now.”

“Okay, but next time I call head.” Hunk chimes in.

Now, the Blue and Yellow Lions stand next to each other. The Red Lion stands atop the Blue Lion, while the Green Lion is atop the Yellow Lion. The Black lion slowly moves down.

“Okay. Arms and legs and… I'll form the head.” Shiro lands the Black Lion on top. “Feel the bonds with your lions. Now, channel your energy into forming Voltron.” the Paladins lower their heads and close their eyes. “Focus. Focus.” Shiro opens his eyes first. “Is everyone bonding and focusing?” Everyone else opens their eyes, pouting.

“Why was this so much easier before?” Lance asks.

Shiro sighs. “Let's take a break.”

All five perk up as they hear a new channel open.

* * *

 

Allura stands in the control room of the Castle of Lions. “Sorry to interrupt, but I may be able to help. Yesterday, you weren't able to form Voltron until you were in the heat of battle.”

“Yeah.”  Pidge agrees brightly.

“I'm listening.” Lance says slowly.

Shiro perks up a little. “You're right.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Keith huffs, still pouting.

“Perfect.” Allura says brightly as she starts pressing on the holographic control panels by her left hand. “Because I need to run a diagnostic test on all of the Castle defenses. This should help!” the forcefield turns on and starts firing lasers.

The beams landing near the Lions. All of them start screaming and avoiding the shots and the resultant explosions.

The Lions start running. “Okay, go, go!” Lance shouts.

“Allura, what are you doing?” Keith demands.

“Running a diagnostic test on the Castle defenses and inspiring you! I believe in you, Paladins! Let fear be your guide! Form Voltron!” she says,  **way** too excited about this.

“Forget this! I'm heading back to the Castle!” Lance gripes as he peels off and turns around, avoiding shots before leaping into the air. Only to crash into the Forcefield. Lance groans as he makes impact, and again once he hits the ground and skids.

“Please stop! Please! Have mercy on us!” Hunk cries as he avoids the shots from the Castle.

“You think Zarkon is going to have mercy on you?” Allura questions. “He's probably on his way right now to destroy us all!” she presses a finger to the screen that she used to turn on the defenses, showing the circles in the different Lion’s colors running around in front of the Castle.

**Auto-lock-on engaged.** The computer calls out and she walks away.

* * *

 

On a Galra ship, a Commander kneels before Zarkon in his throne and a Druid at his right hand  **_(actually it might be his left but I don’t care)_ ** , with two Sentinels behind him.

“You have returned early. Did you complete your mission?” he asks.

“Sir, the moon's crust became unstable. Staying any longer would have cost half my crew.” the commander explains.

Zarkon hums low for a mere moment. “Perhaps, but the half that survived would have been stronger.” 

Confused the Galran Commander lets out a confused hum as he looks up.

“Weakness is an infection. Better to cut it off than let it spread.”

The two Sentinels move and grab the Commander under the arms, who lets out a confused noise, but doesn’t fight back.

“What have you and your Druids come up with to capture Voltron?” Zarkon asks the female Druid beside him.

“I have been working on perfecting something. Something that will strike fear into the hearts of **any** that stand against it. Voltron may have surprised Sendak, but it will **not** be able to overcome **my** creation.” 

**_(Okay, real quick, I did actually change something from the OG- other than Pidge’s genderless pronouns all the time- and it’s where Haggar uses male pronouns [so the OG line says “Voltron may have surprised Sendak, but_ ** **he** **_will not be able to overcome my creation”. and I change_ ** **he** **_to_ ** **it** **_] to refer to Voltron. FOR SOME REASON I CAN’T EXPLAIN! So yeah, that’s not gonna happen, ever, so just be aware of that. I don’t actually know how often that happens, so I can’t say if I’ll let you know every time, but I will change it every time it shows up.)_ **

* * *

 

In a Lounge, Pidge sits slumped in the round-ish shaped couch, Keith sits slightly less slouched with his arms crossed on their right, Lance takes up the most space, fully lying down and his head nearest Hunk who sits relaxed. The four don’t even budge when the automatic doors open for Coran and Allura.

“Are we at full power on condenser number five yet?” Allura asks.

“No, still just 84 percent.” Coran says sadly.

Allura perks up seeing the Paladins. “You did it! You formed Voltron!”

Pidge drops their head back to the floor, while Hunk puts both his arms on the floor and then drops his head back.

“No. The shooting stopped and the particle barrier shut down, so we just flew in.” Keith tells her.

“What?” Allura questions, her voice having almost no inflection and her face deadpanned.

Coran winces behind her. “Oh, right. Sorry, Princess. I had to turn off the Castle defenses to test the fire suppressors.”

Shiro enters through a door on the opposite end of the room and to Allura’s right. “What are you guys doing in here? We're not taking a break.”

“Shiro's right. You should be training.” Allura tries to persuade them.

Hunk groans. “We've been training. When are we going back to Earth?”

Pidge sits up and put their forearms on their thighs. “I'm not going back until I find my family.”

“Guys, there won't be an Earth if we don't figure out how to fight Zarkon.” Shiro states.

“How are we going to fight?” Lance asks, sitting up and looking at their leader skeptically. “We can't even figure out how to form Voltron.”

“Well, I'm not surprised.” Lance turns to Coran with an annoyed look. “You know, the original paladins fought hundreds of battles together, side-by-side. They were like a pack of Yalmors linked at the ears.”

“Wow.” Lance grumbles. “Yeah, that's definitely not us.” he drops back to his side, this time kicking his leg up to land on the floor.

“During the last attack, your survival instincts forced you to work as a team, but that will only get you so far. You'll have to become a real team to have any chance of forming Voltron and then beating Zarkon next time.” All of the Paladins are now at least looking at him with something resembling hope in their eyes. “You should try working out on the training deck.”

“There's a training deck?” Hunk asks.

* * *

 

On Zarkon’s ship, the female druid makes her way down the hall. The other four Druids, these all wearing masks to cover their faces, stand before the door. Just as she approaches it opens, and she walks in.

“I think I have the opportunity you've been waiting for.” a creature that is half shrouded in shadows, but clearly has glowing yellow eyes and thick arms, stands nearly three times as tall as she does. “How would you like to get your revenge against the Champion?”

It growls, then leans forward into the light, bearing its fangs as it growls once more.

* * *

 

On the Training Deck Coran stands in a veiw box above them, that has windows that can go completely dark. While the five Paladins stand in a glowing blue circle in the middle of the room, back to back.“Two, two, one, two.” he tests the mic that is linked to his left ear. He clears his throat before turning to them. “Okay, listen up, guys. The paladin code demands you put your team members' safety above your own. A swarm of drones is about to attack.”

Keith tenses looking over his shoulder. “Huh?”

“It's up to each of you to do everything you can to protect the other members of your team.” Coran continues.

The swarm of drones come out of a hole in the wall, and move slowly towards the group. Keith and Pidge step back and raise their right arms. Forming shields.

“Wait, wait, wait. What's going on?” Hunk asks, raising his own arm and getting startled by the shield. “Whoa. Did you guys get one of these?”

Shiro got his moments after Hunk, and Lance did as well.

“Get ready.” Shiro commands.

The spheres start spinning and firing lasers. One shoots right at Hunk, but rather than using his shield he ducks and the shot hits Pidge in the back. A red hexagon shaped trapdoor up underneath them. Shiro, Lance, and Keith all block the shots with their shields, slowly moving closer together.

“Protect your teammates or no one will be there to protect you!” Coran shouts.

Hunk gets hit and nearly dives into the trap door as the remaining three end up back to back to back.

“Time to increase intensity.” Coran comments.

The drones start spinning even faster.

“You keeping up over there, Keith?” Lance taunts.

Keith barely spares him a glance as he continues to block the shots. “Just concentrate on keeping me safe.”

Lance scoffs. “Me? I own this drill. You're the one who needs to concentrate.”

The spheres suddenly drop and Lance has just enough to time to process that, and look at the red and black paladins with wide eyes. Already mentally off balance, when one fires a shot at his leg, rather than using his shield, he lifts his leg and Keith gets hit in the back.

Lance blocks a few more shots that aimed for Shiro’s head, but gets hit on his side and falls through a trapdoor.

Shiro looks up in shock, taken off guard by Lance’s yelp before he too is hit with a laser. Falling to the ground, then the trapdoor opens under him after a moment.

Coran puts his hand over his face and groans.

* * *

 

Lance stands in the middle of a holographic maze, which then disappears. “To form Voltron, you must trust in each other. This ancient paladin maze will teach you that trust. Your teammate can see the walls, but you cannot. So, listen carefully. If you touch the walls, you'll get a slight shock.”

Lance puts on his helmet. “Wait. Who's guiding me through?”

“Take two steps forward.” Keith says looking at the layout of the maze on a screen in front of him.

Lance deflates. “Oh, no. Not Keith. Why does he get to be the man on the mic?”

“Now, just sit tight. You'll get your turn.” Coran waves off.

“Like I said: take two steps forward, turn right, and take three steps that direction.”

Lance sighs, turning right and walking straight into the wall. Getting zapped. “You did that on purpose!” he snaps at Keith.

“You're not listening.” Keith says simply.

“You said, "Turn right".” Lance repeats.

“But, before that, I said, "Take two steps forward".” Keith says again.

Lance sighs and turns back to where he thinks he was. “Two steps-” he gets zapped again, and turns right towards the view box. “We're switching places right now!”

* * *

 

The Lions fly in formation high in the clouds. “You'll never be able to form Voltron unless each of you has a strong bond with his Lion.” Coran says this time he’s in the Allura’s place on the pop-up panel.

Lance smiles. “No problem. Me and Blue are best buds for life, for real.”

“Perfect! Then you won't have any issues with this exercise. Everyone, put your lions into a nosedive!” he says seeming a little over enthused. 

All the Lions follow his commands. “This is an expert-level drill you shouldn't attempt until you've been flying for years, but… uh… we're in a bit of a rush, so here we go.” a small panel rises up and he hits the button. “Activating training helmets!”

The Paladin’s visors go dark, Shiro’s eyes widen behind it, Keith gasps, Pidge lets out a small sound of confusion, while Hunk is more vocal, and finally, Lance is screaming.

“Coran, what's happening?” Lance’s brain has gone into rapid-fire mode. “I can't see!”

“You must learn to see through your Lions' eyes. The goal is to pull up right before you crash into the ground. Feel what the Lion feels!”

Hunk whimpers. “Mine feels scared!” before he pulls up and out of formation.

“You still going, Keith?” Lance taunts, as their Lion’s spiral around each other.

“You know it. You?” Keith asks, playing into Lance’s taunts.

“Going? I'm speeding up!” Lance shoves his handle forward to just that.

“Oh, yeah?” Keith also pushes his handle forward.

The Blue and Red Lions shoot towards the ground, nearly side by side.

“Must be getting close.” Lance says when the silence has gone on for a few moments.

“Must be.” Keith says almost as an observation than anything else.

“You getting scared?” Lance taunts.

“I'm not scared!” Keith yells.

A huge dust cloud poofs as both Lions hit the sand. Both buried head first into the dune.  _ **(He may be the most talented Pilot but please remember they never said he was smartest.)**_

Lance manages to pull his Lion free, but tumbles down the dune.

Keith groans out an “ow”.

“I win.” Lance says, dizzy.

“What was that noise? Did they crash?” Pidge asks worriedly. When they receive no response they pull up on the controls. The Green Lion pulls back but nicks the edge of cliff.

Shiro and the Black Lion are the only ones still going. The Black Lion now goes down the canyon, Shiro’s eyes snap open and rather than the world around him he is in an almost ether of outer space that emerged from a blue ripple form his forehead. A bright ball of energy is under his feet and takes the shape of his Lion so his feet are almost standing on its nose as it growls. He and Black almost seem to merge consciousness as Shiro’s pupil is overtaken with the same shade of yellow that is the Lion’s eye, the two flash as one. Showing Shiro an almost hazy view of the canyon around him, despite the fact that his eyes still are closed. Barely even moving the jets are fired and the Black Lion stops mere feet off the ground.  Flying expertly. Dodging rock formations and cliffs. “I think I'm getting this.” he says.

“Excellent, Shiro!” Coran cheers.

* * *

 

Back on the Training Deck, the Paladins sit in the center circle, this time sitting down and facing each other, small headsets on.

“The most important part of paladin training is being able to meld your minds and focus on one thing: Voltron.” Coran speaks over the mic. “Everything else has to fade away. This technique will be essential every time you form Voltron.”

Keith has an image of the shack he brought Shiro and the other Paladins to, and the speeder parked beside it.

“So, relax and open your mind.”

Lance thinks of a large family: a woman dressed in a formal outfit and glasses with brown hair tied back despite its already short length a stern expression on her face, a burly man with a goatee wearing casual clothes and a sweatshirt tied around his waist with his arms crossed over his chest and big smile on his face, a shorter balding man and an older woman are next to him, a smiling slightly older woman with voluminous hair has her hands on the grandmother’s shoulders as she smiles wearing a nice top and slacks, just off to her side and behind her is a man with a mustache and a polo, in the front row are two little kids a boy with brown hair and bright eyes next to a paler skinned girl with darker hair and eyes, the boy looking about two or three years older than the girl as he hangs onto the poofy haired woman’s pant leg, behind the little girl is a woman in an orange dress with a yellow shortsleeved layered top, her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, but the waves are just as poofy, a slim young woman in a white sleevesless dress with a wide brown belt and matching boots stands next to the woman with the ponytail, finally a tall and lanky, slightly paler boy stands with a hand on his hip and his hair just reaching the collar of his open button-up.

“No walls, no secrets between paladins.”

Hunk thinks of red fish and rice, paired with shrimp kabobs with a happy, hungry expression.

“Come on, everyone, clear everything.”

Pidge’s image is statics in and out, but it’s clearly the picture they had in their bag. While Shiro’s is a rocketship. Probably the one of his last mission.

“Now, focus on forming your lion.”

Shiro’s mind easily creates an image of the Black Lion.

“Bring your lions together and form Voltron.”

Keith, Lance, and Hunk all bring their mental Lions to the center of the circle, but Pidge still has the statically fading picture, but it’s clearer than it was.

“Keep your minds open, work together. Good! Keep focusing! Only one to go!” Coran tries to be encouraging.

“Pidge,” Keith snaps. “stop thinking of your girlfriend!”

“I wasn't!” they defend, and the picture fully disappears as Hunk opens one eye. “Hunk was rooting around in my head!”

The Yellow Paladin opens both eyes and looks at them sincerely. “I thought we were open. You can look in my head hole.”

“Everyone has to be able to look in everyone's head holes! Clear your minds!” Coran cheers.

The Yellow and Green Lion holograms reappear in front of the two of them.  **_(DA… how is this over their heads? You’ve been surprisingly helpful, but that’s just wrong.)_ **

“Good! Almost there.” Coran encourages as all five now move together. “Now, form Voltron.” the holograms start forming Voltron. “Yes!” Coran cheers as Green goes to connect but suddenly swaps back to the picture.

**_(FYI I think this is where I got the clear shot of the pic and literally started cheering because I thought they had actually made Pidge trans… so close, but yet so… NOT DONE RIGHT!)_ **

“Pidge!” Lance complains.

Pidge yanks the headset off, standing up as they throw it to the ground. “I'm done with this! Look, I don't like everyone grubbing around in my head!”

“Oh, come on, Pidge, we're starting to get the hang of this.” Shiro tries to get them to stick with it.

“I'm just- I'm just tired, okay?” their voice cracks a little and Shiro deflates with a frown.

“Okay. Let's take a break.” he tells the others.

* * *

 

Coran hands them all CapriSuns as they relax. Lance leans his back against Hunk’s shoulder as the Yellow Paladin sits with his legs crossed and one arm resting on his leg. Keith sits opposite the Yellow Paladin, one leg out straight, Shiro sits up perfectly straight with his legs crossed, between Shiro and Hunk Pidge sits with their feet under them.

“You have been working hard. Maybe it's time to relax a little.” Coran says.

“What are you doing lying around? You're supposed to be training!” Allura says in annoyance as she walks in.

“Just resting a bit. You know, you can't push too hard.” Coran tries to defend.

“What do you mean, "can't push too hard"?” Allura demands and Coran’s eyes go wide. “Get up, you lazy lumps! It's time you faced the Gladiator!”

**_(I don’t care if the world was actively burning, yelling at me is the number one way to NOT get me to do what you want.)_ **

* * *

 

The Paladins stand, spread out, armed with their weapons.

“In order to defeat the Gladiator, five paladins must fight as one.” Coran tells them.

A trapdoor opens in the ceiling and a humanoid robot drops out of it.  **_(Also whoever does the DA, tell me your secrets! How. Do. You. BREATHE?)_ **

It lands on the floor and turns directly at Hunk, charging at him.

With the heavy machine-gun style Bayard, Hunk swings his weapon on his hip. Firing in an arc at the Gladiator. The Gladiator jumps over the shots, which forces Keith to bring up his shield to block the blast.

The hits are strong and nearly knock Keith over.

The Gladiator has successfully flanked Hunk and uses its staff to sweep his feet out from under him, then jabs him the chest with it as crackles with electricity.

The Gladiator turns towards a charging Pidge, they slash at the Gladiator with the glowing edge of their Bayard, but the Gladiator uses the staff to block and as Pidge dodges to the right, it jumps and swings down forcing them to use their Bayard to block and using the other side of the staff to knock their block apart. Given how much Pidge is knocked off balance it spins its staff to gain more momentum before swinging down at Pidge’s left shoulder. They block with their Bayard again, but the Gladiator uses the staff in its fullest to hit Pidge in the helmet with a zapping end.

They get knocked completely off balance and dropped onto Hunk’s stomach before falling to the ground.

Lance shoots at the Gladiator with his laser rifle, the Gladiator uses its staff to block the shots. Until it is close enough to actually hit his weapon with the staff. Lance keeps ahold of the weapon, actually using it to block, and tries to turn out of its path, heading away from the wall and down the room more. As he does so his rifle gets knocked out of his hands while Shiro and Keith both charge at the Gladiator.

Lance watches as his weapon gets knocked away, and then the Gladiator hits him atop the head. It turns a full 180° to block Keith’s sword and hit it back at him and away from his face before it hits Lance atop the head again. This time it also hits him the stomach and spins him around on the staff to throw him into Keith.

Shiro engages the glow of his Galran arm, then the Gladiator lunges at him.

_ In Shiro’s head, he sees three Galra Sentinels charge at him in the halls of a ship. _

As the Gladiator jumps to strike Shiro’s now unprotected body, Keith jumps in between and catches its staff with his sword. Keith is in a battle of strength and he’s giving it everything. “Shiro, are you okay?” he asks over his shoulder.

The Gladiator is able to tip Keith’s sword down to slide its pole off of it and swing Keith’s legs out from under him and hit him into a still hazy Shiro. Both of them crash to the ground.

The Gladiator’s “eye” goes dark as the simulation is turned off before it too slumps to the ground, revealing an angry Allura.

“That combat simulator was set at a level fit for an Altean  **child!** You're not even close to working as a team, let alone ready to face Zarkon!” Shiro and Keith can only look up at her from the floor, silent, in the face of her not only blatant annoyance but her scathing attitude towards the entire team’s performance.

* * *

 

In the Dining Hall, all the Paladins sit on the same side of a long table, the ‘food’ on the table is the same green goo that was floating around the Healing Pods after Allura and Coran awoke.

“Ahoy, young Paladins! I've whipped up a big batch of focusing food. After this meal, you'll be forming Voltron six times a movement and twice on the astral conflux!”

Shiro smiles. “Smells great, Coran. Thanks.”

Coran pulls out a handheld device, pressing a button at them as they go to lift their spoons, putting cuffs around their wrists, and binding their wrists to each other.

“Hold the phone!” Lance says, turning to Coran with an unhappy look.

“I saw a lot of solid individual performances today, but you're still struggling to work as a team. So, welcome to the final bonding exercise of the day.”

Hunk tries to reach for his silverware, first with his right hand, which pulls on Lance’s hand and doesn’t let him go further than five inches from the Blue Paladin’s cuff, then with his left which has similar results with Shiro’s arm. His look turns surprisingly angry. “Coran, I want you to think about what you're doing.”

“This one's a classic. You get to feed each other, like a pack of Yalmors!”

All the Paladins growl at each other, not even having enough patience in them to be annoyed at the exercise, now they’re annoyed with each other.

* * *

 

In a massive chamber, the witch stands on a floating platform in front of a massive robot, Zarkon watches from high above and behind her. She raises her hand and a glowing pink gate opens in the middle of a magic circle, inside the glow is a container holding the creature she spoke to.

She shoves her hands out and the energy she creates washes over the creature. The same pale purple/pink glow transfers to the tubing on the ground to the robot. As they reach the robot steam comes from its chest.

Zarkon narrows his eyes as he watches the eyes of the massive robot light up.

* * *

 

Hunk tries to eat, but gets hit by Lance’s hand. “Ow!” he complains.

“Sorry.” he apologizes honestly, however when Hunk goes for another bite and accidentally puts Lance hand in his mouth he freaks. “Ew!”

Hunk yanks on his hand harshly, pulling him off kilter and Keith has no choice but to follow. Right into Lance’s food.

Lance raises an eyebrow as if to ask the hand ‘really?’ before turning to Keith. “Oh, nice. You defiled my food goo!”

“It's your fault!” Keith defends before huffing. “This is ridiculous.”

Allura eats her food goo at the head of the table, but growls in annoyance before setting her own spoon down and glaring at the Paladins. “Do Earthlings ever stop complaining?”

“Can't you just give us a break?” Shiro asks, still remaining calm, somehow. “Everyone's been working really hard today.”

“Yeah!” Keith snaps, already standing up. “We're not some prisoners for you to toy with, like, like…” he trails, unsure where he was actually planning on going with that.

“Like a bunch of toy prisoners!” Lance chimes in.

“Yes! Thank you, Lance!” Keith says emphatically.

Coran goes stark still for a moment before looking just as annoyed as the Paladins. “You do not yell at the Princess!”

“Oh, the princess of what?” Pidge drawls. “We're the only ones out here and she's no princess of ours!” they groan as food goo hits them in the face.

Everyone looks down the table stunned, even Coran looks surprised that Allura is standing up with her spoon obviously being the source of the flicked goo.

Keith reacts first, even if it takes him a moment to process. “Go loose, Pidge!”

Pidge’s arm goes full deadfish, allowing Keith to grab the plate of goo in front of him and fling the whole thing at the Princess.

Coran, armed with a towel, blocks the surprised Princess, before taking a serving spoon full of the goo and hitting all five of them with it.

“Oh, it's on now.” Hunk says before dropping his face into his food and getting a mouthful. Standing up, he slams his hands into his puffy cheeks to spray it right back at Coran and Allura.

Coran groans while Allura nearly growls before they shake the goo off and each pick up a plate and start flinging goo at the Paladins.

Keith gets hit square in the face, while Pidge ducks under the table and Lance and Hunk block their own faces.

To get back Lance and Hunk throw goo at both of them, forcing the Alteans to use the chairs as protection.

Keith and Pidge both fling a plate of goo at the Alteans, hitting Coran.

Both Coran and Allura use spoons to fling goo off their plates and at the Paladins. Hitting Hunk, Lance, in the head.

When Shiro and Lance use their own hands to help hunk spray goo at the aliens, Shiro gets hit in the face with some for his trouble.

All five Paladins are covered in goo, Coran has his own helping of goo on him, the table’s a mess, almost all the chairs on Allura’s side of the table are knocked over and even she has goo stuck to her.

She backs off, slumping into her chair.

All five exchange looks, trying to confirm if she’s admitting defeat before they start laughing.

“Enough!” they all stop laughing and wait for the angry tone to continue into a lecture. “Do you see what you're doing?” she looks up and is surprisingly happy. “You're finally working together as one!”

“Hey, she's right!” Keith says with a light smile towards Lance.

Lance thinks it over, his eyebrow rising in surprise. “I actually don't hate you right now.”

Hunk leans in and is back to his naturally happy self. “You guys thinking what I'm thinking?”

“Let's go form Voltron!” Shiro says, raising his fist as much as he can with the cuffs on.

“Yeah!” they all cheer.

Then Hunk looks down, a little sheepish. “Actually, I was thinking of dessert. But, yeah! Let's do it!”

The five try to move and get dragged down by falling chairs and each other.

* * *

 

Keith, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge all step into elevators, this time they’re all wearing their uniforms, Shiro’s section of the floor drops down. He is met with an open doorway and a handle of a zipline that he jumps to grab on to.

All five head down their ziplines, jump through the narrower tunnel, land in their Transport Pods, making their way down another tunnel towards their Lions.

In the Black Lion Shiro’s chair slides forward to the control area. The Lion’s cockpit lights up with its soft purple glow of technology as his hands grab the handles. “Everyone ready to do this?”

“Roger that!” Pidge calls from the Green Lion as they too grab the handles.

“It's on!” Lance says brightly, as the Blue Lion lights up.

“Yes, sir!” Keith confirms as the Red Lion lights up.

“I was born ready!” Hunk agrees as the Yellow Lion lights up.

The eyes of the Black Lion glow as it stands up to roar.

“Then let's go!” Shiro tells the pilots.

“Yeah!” the other four cheer, and Voltron is formed before descending and landing on the ground before Coran and Allura.  **_(I wasn’t joking when I said I was only going to do this once, fight me. I need a “Skip Transformation Sequence” button Netflix!)_ **

“I told you I could get them to do it. They just needed a common enemy.” Allura says with a smile.

“It's true.” Coran admits. “Like the old proverb says, "A man can be driven to do anything, if a beautiful woman is just really, really mean to him".” Allura is rather unimpressed and pouts at the saying.

All the Paladins are back in the Lounge, back in their clothes. Pidge sits closest, playing with the mice. Shiro sits close to them but is watching the other three. Lance and Keith sit on the couch, while Hunk sits on the floor, his legs in between the other two Paladins.

“Man, that was cool! I'm so charged up, I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep tonight.” Lance says, sounding like a kid on a sugar rush.

“Not me. When my head hits the pillow, I'm going to be lights out.” Keith says easily, even giving a small smile as he uses his right hand to further illustrate his point.

Hunk drops down on to the couch, “I just want you to know that I realized when we were in Voltron, we're brothers, man.” then grabs the smaller boys into a crushing hug, much to their surprise. “You know? Like, we're totally connected. No secrets, no barriers, no nothing.” Shiro places a hand on Pidge’s shoulder as he smiles. “Brothers all the way. I love you guys.”

“G-forces mess with your head a little bit?” Keith asks curiously.

“Yeah, maybe a little. I dunno.” Hunk admits, rubbing the back of his neck. “It's been a tough few days.”

Keith steps up onto the raised floor, while Lance and Hunk walk towards Shiro, who is walking towards the stairs. The Black Paladin pauses and turns to Pidge.

“Going to bed, Pidge?” he asks curiously.

“In a minute.” Pidge assures with a smile.

“Good work today. We're really coming together.” with that he turns and follows Hunk and Lance out the door.

Pidge’s smile drops and their gaze turns downward, pulling the picture out of their pants’ pocket. The smallest mouse climbs onto their shoulder, the largest moving onto their thigh.

The picture in their hand has a boy in a Garrison uniform, wearing glasses and has nearly the same haircut as Pidge, with his arm thrown over the shoulders of an equally honey-blonde haired girl, though her hair falls past her shoulders, and she’s wearing a casual purple dress.

* * *

 

On Zarkon’s ship, both the Emperor and the witch watch as a massive ship is preparing for take-off. “This beast will allow us to destroy the paladins. And then, Voltron will be ours.” The engines ignite and the fighter shoots out into space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suck and I'm sorry this took so long, but here it is.  
> TBH I've been kinda doing a couple things for this fandom while working on stuff in other fandoms because s8 scares me and I don't wanna have to go through it again, but I am here and I will do this.


End file.
